Emerald Island
by AkeenCarter
Summary: One day after a chance encounter on her way home from school, Setsuna Tokage takes a particular interest in a certain green haired classmate of her's. Craving some answers, the young heroine takes matters into her own hands and decides to get to the bottom of what makes him tick. (M-Rating for dark themes.) (I do not own BNHA.) (Slight OPM Crossover.)
1. A Chance Encounter

_~Ten Months Ago~_

"Man, just think about it. Next year we'll officially be U.A. students!" Tetsutetsu practically cheered on the walk home from school.

"We still have to actually get accepted, Metalhead. You know getting into that place is super hard." Tokage immediately chided him. The two may have been friends for years up until this point, but she never really understood how the guy managed to stay so energetic about things that weren't certain.

"Speak for yourself." The silver haired teen shot back. "Didn't you say that your aunt was going to give you a recommendation?"

"Aunt Nemuri may be helping me out, but even with a recommendation I would still have to take an exam." She answered back.

Although the chance of her making into the school of her dreams through recommendation were pretty good, it certainly wasn't a guarantee. Not only was the recommendations exam apparently much more difficult than the regular one. But she'd be competing with students who were way better connected and probably more powerful than her.

"Well, with your quirk you're probably going to get in anyway. I'm gonna have to up my training regiment if I want to stand a chance."

"That and you're gonna have to actually study for once. All that training would just go to waste if you can't even pass the written test."

"Low blow dude…." The silver haired teen practically deflated.

The young duo continued on their regular path as usual until it came time for them to split up. Although they went to the same school, their houses were in opposite directions of one another. Tetsutetsu gave Tokage a quick wave before heading off, leaving the girl to make the rest of her journey home by herself.

On a regular day, Tokage's trip home would've simply involved the girl taking a few main roads through Saitama prefecture and passing through the local shopping center. However, today was not one of those days. As luck would have it, a villain had chosen today of all days to cause some mayhem at the shopping center and the area was completely blocked off. Much to her own annoyance.

Deciding not to wait on the local heroes to get the job done, the green haired teen chose to take a shortcut. Taking a left turn where she normally would've kept on going straight, Tokage strolled a little further down the road until she came up on a small alleyway that led onto the next street. She had found this place a while back but decided against making it part of her daily routine. This was mainly due to the fact that it was a known gathering spot for the local vagrants. Thankfully, those types of people usually only occupied the area after the sun went down to avoid getting arrested.

It wasn't long before the girl found herself walking through this infamous alleyway and apparently luck was on her side seeing as there seemed to be no other signs of life. Tokage wouldn't describe herself as a nervous person by any stretch of the imagination, but even she was smart enough to be on her guard in place like this.

Barely halfway through the dark and foul-smelling passage, a loud crashing sound in front of her caught her attention. The green haired girl quickly went on her guard and reached in her uniform pocket for the pepper spray that her dad forced her to carry on her person. Holding it out in front of her just to be safe. It was then that Tokage spotted the source of the sudden disturbance. A good twenty meters directly in front of her was the unmistakable sight of a person lying on the ground, a slight coughing sound emanating from his mouth let her know that he was still alive.

Against her better judgment, the green haired teen threw caution to the wind and quickly made her approach to the individual to check on them. Most people probably would've chosen to just walk right passed him, pretended that they didn't see anything and went on with their lives. But Setsuna Tokage was not most people. Not only did she want to be a hero, she was a decent human being. And she wasn't about to just walk past someone who needed help.

In a few short steps, the girl was quickly on top of the person and finally got a good look at them through the small amount of light that was present in the alley. Nothing struck her as out of the ordinary besides the dirty white hoodie and a pair of bright red shoes on their feet. The person was also laying on their side so she couldn't actually see their face.

"Hey, are you alright?!" Tokage asked the person as she knelt down and turned them over onto their back, finally getting a good look at their face. And to say that she was surprised would certainly be an understatement. She doesn't know exactly what she had been expecting, but Tokage was certainly thrown off by the person's face.

It was a boy, one that was definitely around her age. He had a few freckles on his face and she could see patches of bright green hair poking out through his hood. If it wasn't for the fact that his face was covered in a layer of dirt and he smelled like week old trash, she would've said that he was pretty cute. _'God dammit Setsuna, this is not the time for that!'_ She mentally slapped herself to get focused.

"Hey, are you okay?!" The girl repeated once again, this time shaking him a bit to see if that would work. There was a beat of silence before a slight groan exited the boy's mouth. Tokage let out a breath that she wasn't aware she was holding seeing that he was still responsive at the very least. Barely a second later, they boy eyes fluttered open, revealing a set of green orbs that reminded her a bit of emeralds.

Those green eyes lazily looked at her for a brief moment as the recognition finally set it. And in an instant, the previously unconscious teen flung himself up and backed away from her while sliding his body across the ground.

"Whoa, whoa, easy there tiger." Tokage said while putting her hands up in a non-threatening/defensive manner.

That wasn't enough to stop the boy from crashing into a pile of trash on the nearby wall, however. "W-who a-a-are you?!" He asked with a noticeable redness on his face. But before Tokage had a chance to respond, something strange happened. Without warning, the pile of garbage around him lifted off of the ground and began to float in mid air.

_'Telekinesis, huh?'_ She thought.

"I-I'm s-sorry, I don't h-have any money on me!" The boy quickly covered his face with his arms. Judging by how quickly he took up a defensive position along with they way he was stuttering, the guy was terrified.

"Hey dude calm down, I'm not trying to mug you." She attempted to reassure him. "But you need to relax, your quirk's going haywire."

"My what?" The green haired boy slightly dropped his hands and looked at her confusion before noticing the garbage floating around him. Tokage couldn't quite place the look that he had on his face while he gawked at the flying objects, but something about it was definitely weird.

"Hey, it's all good. I'm not here to hurt you." She told him in an attempt to calm him down.

"W-who are you? A-a-and what do you want?"

"My name's Tokage." She answered. "I don't want anything. I was just passing through the alley when I saw you hit the ground. I'm not gonna hurt you."

"An alley?" He up-turned his gaze and look around to see if what this girl in front of him was saying was the truth. "How did I end up here?"

"That's a good question." Tokage gave him a pointed glare. "Do you mind turning your quirk off? It's making the smell worse." She motioned to the still free floating bags of garbage and cardboard boxes.

Instead of a response, she watched as the by took a few deep breaths presumably to calm himself down. After a few seconds of that, everything around him dropped to the ground with a loud thud.

"Better." Tokage smirked.

"I-I'm sorry!"

"What are you apologizing to me for?" She quirked an eyebrow at him.

"S-sorry, i-it's a h-habit."

"Okay?" She gave him a questioning look before getting back on track. "Are you alright? You just passed out a second ago."

Just before the boy could say anything, the sound of his stomach grumbling cut him off. This being more than enough to cause his face to redden more than what it already was, if that was even possible. A pained grimace grew across his face while he clutched his abdomen to hide his shame.

Tokage was quick to take the hint and reached inside one of the side pockets of her backpack before fishing out a granola bar that she didn't eat during lunch. "Here!" She said as tossed it towards him. "I think you might need that more than me."

Somehow the boy barely managed to catch the granola bar before it hit the ground. He paused for a moment as he looked at it and then back at her. "I couldn-"

"It's fine." She waved off rather nonchalantly. "It's all I have on me, but it should make due."

"T-Thank you."

"Don't mention it." She said with a smile.

The girl watched the boy as he quickly ripped open the wrapper and practically inhaled the granola bar in a single bite. Tokage failed to mask the look of bewilderment on her face at the sight of it. It was almost as if the boy hadn't had a thing to eat in days. "Better?" She asked him.

The nervous teen looked away in embarrassment before giving a reply. "Y-yes, t-thank you."

"Good." She let out a small breath. "Now that you have some food in your gut, do you think that you're okay enough to talk?"

The boy simply nodded as he wiped the crumbs off of his mouth.

"So...what's your name?"

"M-Midoriya." He said in a low tone that Tokage was barely able to catch.

"Well Midoriya, you wanna tell me what a good looking guy like you is doing in this dark and smelly alley?" She said with a grin and a teasing expression. Trying to come off as non-threatening as possible.

The boy now identified as Midoriya's face flushed once again before opening his mouth. But quickly closed it and scrambled onto his feet.

"I-I'm sorry for b-bothering you Tokage-san. I greatly a-a-ppreciate the food but I-I have to go!" The boy said with a low bow before scurrying off down the alley in the direction she just came from.

"Hey wait!" She beckoned, but it was already too late. The green haired, mystery boy was gone before she knew what else to do.

Tokage simply stood there for a moment and thought about what to do next. Going after him was probably a bad idea. And calling the police or a hero would've been equally pointless. A part of her wanted to make sure that the guy was okay, but she had a feeling that he didn't want to be around anyone.

The girl couldn't help but wonder what exactly happened to cause someone her age to wind up hungry and in some dirty alley in the middle of town, but she doubted that she would ever find an answer.

Instead, the girl simply shrugged it off and made her way out the alley to continue her journey home.

Tokage ended up never telling anyone about this one-off encounter and in a few weeks time, she would have forgotten all about it. Little did she know that she would be meeting the boy again very soon.

* * *

The long awaited day had finally arrived, the first day of school. Not just any school, the illustrious U.A.. The top hero school in all of Japan.

Getting to this point was definitely not easy. After months of hardcore studying and training, Setsuna Tokage was one step closer to acheiving her dream of becoming a pro hero. She would be lying if she said that she didn't feel the least bit intimidated about beginning her journey, but this was no time for her nerves to get the better of her.

"Man, I've never seen you so nervous." A smiling Tetsutetsu joked at her expense.

"Whatever, Metalhead." Tokage slightly pouted before marching off and making her way into the building.

It didn't take long for Tokage and Tetsutestu to find their assigned homeroom, Class 1-B. The girl paused for a moment at the door to shake her nerves out. She couldn't help but wonder what kind of students were going to be in her class. She had no doubt that she would be making a lot of friends relatively soon, but the heir of mystery around the whole situation was a bit unsettling.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Tokage opened up the door and her eyes immediately scanned around to see if anyone else showed up. There were five students already in the classroom and in their seats. A girl with orange hair in some sort of side ponytail, a guy with green skin and what looked like knives on his face, a guy with black hair and a white headband, a blonde kid who reminded her of a weasel for some reason and another girl with brown hair in some kind of bob-cut.

Before either of the two students could say anything, the oranged haired girl stood up from her seat and made her way over to them. "Hello, I'm Itsuka Kendou. It's nice to meet you!" She smiled at them with a polite bow before extending her hand out.

"How's it going? I'm Setsuna Tokage!" The green haired teen greeted back before motioning over to her friend. "And this is Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu."

Tokage noticed the look of confusion that crossed the girl's face and wasted no time in confirming her suspicions. "Yes, his first and last names are the same."

"Oh." Kendou simply said before extending her hand out towards the silver haired boy. "Nice to meet you."

"You too." Tetsutetsu shook her hand.

"I look forward to learning with the both of you."

"Same."

"Our teacher was here a bit earlier but had to leave to take care of some business. He wanted me to let everyone know that he'll be back by the time class starts."

"Cool." The two of them nodded before heading to their assigned seats. Just like in middle school, Tokage and Tetsutetsu were seated right next to one another. The boy in seat thirteen and the girl in seat fourteen.

As time went on, the rest of the students began filing in one by one. There were a few interesting characters from what she could tell, like the one guy who's head looked like a giant glue dispenser and the other who was literally a human speech bubble. But no one seemed any more strange than what she was used to. From what she could tell pretty much everyone was present and accounted for minus one person. Every seat in the class had been filled except for the one on her left in the row in front of her.

Barely a minute before the bell rung is when the last student finally showed up. At the sound of the door opening up, everyone's attention was immediately directed towards the class entrance. And in walked a boy with green hair and freckles.

Kendou wasted no time in giving him the greeting she gave everyone else that walked in, and Tokage felt her eyes lingering on him for a few seconds longer than what they should have.

The girl couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something about the guy seemed really familiar. She took a second to look him up and down, but she was drawing a blank. Taking in the boy's features, she tried her damndest to figure why she felt like she knew him from somewhere. But nothing was coming up.

Before her mind could think about it any further, the green haired boy made his way over to his seat. His eyes scanning across the classroom presumably to get a good look at the rest of the students. But something strange happened. When the boy's eyes glanced over to her, Tokage noticed a slight moment of recognition cross his face. It lasted only a second before he looked away and quickly sat down in his seat.

_'That was weird.'_ The girl silently thought while her eyes drifted over to him. _'Does he know me from somewhere? I feel like I've seen him before.'_

Tokage didn't get a chance to ponder over this any further before the school bell finally rang. And almost immediately after, the door opened up once again. This time revealing a large man with white hair and sharp teeth dressed in a red and black outfit.

"Greetings students, my name is Sekijiro Kan." The man announced in a deep and rough sounding voice. "A few of you might have heard of me, or remember from your acceptance letters, but I also go by Vlad King." He continued while setting a stack of papers down on the desk at the front of the class. Tokage knew that U.A.'s hero's course was taught by pro heroes, but she herself had never even heard of the guy before.

"Before we start, I just wanted to let you all know that this is my first year teaching. So just like the rest of you, this will be a learning experience for all of us. I like to think of myself as fair and reasonable, but don't test my patience." He told them with a slight scowl. This was more than enough to intimidate a few of the students.

"Now, we have about thirty minutes before the opening ceremony is supposed to start, so let's all take some time to get to know one another. One boy one, I want you all to introduce yourselves to the class. Tell us your name, where you're from, what your quirk is and anything else you'd like us to know."

One by one, the students gave their introductions. Everyone seemed pretty chill for the most part and Tokage was certainly glad that it looked like she wasn't in a class full of assholes. In no time in came her turn to speak her peace.

"How's it going everyone? I'm Setsuna Tokage." The girl beamed with confidence. "Like Tetsutetsu here, I'm also from Saitama prefecture. I call my quirk 'lizard tail splitter'."

"Do you mind explaining?" The furry guy with glasses next to her politely asked.

"Sure." She nodded. "Pretty much, I can detach and control any part of my body at will. It's pretty scary when you first see it, but it makes for some pretty fun jokes."

"That's pretty cool!" Tsuburaba, the guy with brown hair directly in front of Tetsutetsu commented.

With her part over, Tokage sat back down and let the class continue on. The next few students introduced themselves but Tokage found herself particularly interested in the next one to speak for some reason.

"G-greetings, I'm Izuku Midoriya." The boy announced in a slightly nervous tone as he stood up from his seat. "I-I'm from Shizuoka and my quirk is telekinesis."


	2. Quirk Test

"G-greetings, I'm Izuku Midoriya." The boy announced in a slightly nervous tone as he stood up from his seat. "I-I'm from Shizuoka and my quirk is telekinesis."

A moment of realization hit Tokage like a freight train once those words finally set in. In the blink of an eye, memories from that fateful afternoon almost a year ago came flooding in. It was him, it had to be. There was no doubt about it. That's why he looked so familiar.

"Wait a second…." The boy with the white headband now identified as Awase suddenly blurted out. "Green hair, telekinesis…you wouldn't happen to be related to the "Psychic Sisters" would you?" His question gaining a few curious looks.

"N-no, sorry. I g-get that a lot though." Midoriya shyly rubbed the back of his head.

"I wouldn't doubt it." Another student chuckled.

With that out of the way, the green haired boy quickly sat back down as the next student gave his introduction. However, for the remainder of their time in the classroom before heading to the school auditorium, Tokage found herself repeatedly stealing glances at him.

How could she not? She was one hundred percent certain that this Izuku Midoriya was the exact same boy that she met in that alley all those months ago. Granted, she couldn't remember his face too well. But there aren't a lot of people with green hair, green eyes, freckles and telekinetic quirks walking around. And if wasn't for his slight stutter along with the brief look they shared, she wouldn't have thought much of it.

But there was one thing that Setsuna Tokage was absolutely certain of. She definitely needed to talk to this guy.

* * *

Orientation went about as normally as one would expect for the incoming class of first years. The students of 1-B received the full U.A. welcome and were introduced to a few of their would-be teachers. Everyone had to do their best not to fanboy/fangirl too much at the thought of being taught by some pretty famous pro heroes. The only weird thing however, was that their sister hero class, 1-A, wasn't present for the ceremony. Apparently, their teacher had them doing something else that must've been more important.

Following the official welcome and their mandatory guidance counseling session from the pro hero Hound Dog, the students made their way to the cafeteria for some much needed lunch.

"Y'know, I thought our first day here was going to be more…exciting." Said Tetsutetsu as he and Tokage walked around in search of a table.

"Yeah, it's definitely not what I was expecting." The green haired girl shrugged.

The duo strolled around the packed cafeteria for about another thirty seconds before Tokage spotted a mop of green hair out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head a bit further and sure enough, sitting all by himself was the object of her curiosity for the last few hours.

"Hey, why don't we go sit with him?" She suggested while pointing over to their new classmate.

"You think he'd be cool with that? He doesn't strike me as the talkative type."

"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't have a problem with it." She gave him a toothy smirk. Without missing a beat, Tokage and Tetsutetsu made their way over to the almost abandoned table. The girl couldn't help but feel her heartbeat elevate a bit with each passing step. She really had no clue what she was going to say to him. Or if he even wanted to talk to her at all.

He'd been pretty quiet so far throughout the day and she had a feeling that wasn't extremely social. But the logical part of her mind was being overwritten by the curious side.

"Hey, are these seats taken?" Tokage asked with a friendly grin.

Midoriya upturned his gaze and immediately felt his cheeks heat up when the two of them made eye contact. That small reaction was more than enough proof for Tokage to let her know that he recognized her. Although she wanted to just come right out and ask him about that day in the alley right then and there, she knew better. Especially with Tetsutetsu around.

"U-uhm, no. Y-you can sit here if you'd like." He said in a low tone while averting his gaze. All of a sudden, the boy grabbed his tray and began walking away. However, he barely made it two steps before Tokage called out to him.

"Did you not want to sit with us?" She asked while arching an eyebrow at him.

"Huh?" He looked back at her with a confused expression.

"I didn't mean we wanted the whole table, I thought we could all just eat together."

"Y-you want to sit...with me?" He looked to his two classmates as if he was having a hard time comprehending what she was saying.

"Yeah." Tokage grinned back.

"Oh...o-okay. Sorry." The boy quickly apologized before sitting back down at the table. If Midoriya had her curiosity before, now he had her full attention. Something about that was weird. And not in a good way. "I'd be h-happy to eat lunch with you guys."

"Sweet, thanks man!" Tetsutetsu wasted no time in taking the seat directly across from him. Completely ignoring the awkwardness of the last few seconds. "Your name's Midoriya, right?"

"Yes, and you are Tetsutetsu-san and…." He trailed off for a moment as the two green haired teens shared a quick glance. "T-Tokage-san, right?"

"We sure are!"

"So Midoriya...how've you been liking U.A. so far? Metalhead here says that there hasn't been enough excitement."

"W-Well, it's only the first day. I'm sure things will p-pick up once we get into the swing of things."

Before Tokage had a chance to respond, a familiar female voice interrupted her. "Hey, is it alright if we sit with you guys?" Everyone shifted their gaze over to see the orange haired girl, Itsuka Kendou along with the gray haired girl, Reiko Yanagi.

"Yeah sure! The more the merrier, right?" Tetsutetsu waved them on before anyone else could say otherwise.

'_Damn! The more people we have here, the less I can get Midoriya to talk.'_ Tokage thought while keeping up her own inviting grin.

"Thanks." Kendou said with much gratitude. "Alright, let me see if I remember everyone's names. Tetsutetsu, Tokage, Yanagi and Midoriya, right?" She asked while pointing to all of them individually. Earning a set of approving nods.

"Oh man, you have a better memory than I do! I still barely know half of our class." The silver haired teen groaned.

"Well, we'll get a better chance to remember everyone's names this afternoon." Kendou shot back.

"Oh yeah, Kan-sensei did say that we were doing something after lunch didn't he? Any ideas on what it might be?" Tokage looked around the table for some possible insight.

"No clue." Kendou shrugged after taking a sip of her coffee. "Well, no point in worrying about it until then."

"True." She agreed. "So, since we have a whole hour to chill out, why don't we get to know each other a bit since we're all gonna be in the same class? Like I said earlier, I'm Setsuna Tokage. My quirk is '_lizard tail splitter'_ and I love dinosaurs and movies." The girl beamed.

"Well, I'm Itsuka Kendou. My quirk is '_big fist'_, I can enlarge my first to a pretty gigantic size. It's nothing super flashy though. I love martial arts and coffee, pretty much."

"I'm Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, I can turn my entire body into steel and I love working out!" The silver haired teen cheered while pumping his fist in the air.

The three of them looked over to the other two occupants and waited for one of them to speak up. Both Midoriya and Yanagi looked at each other for a moment before the gray haired girl decided to speak up first.

"I'm Reiko Yanagi and I call my quirk '_poltergeist'_. I can lift any object that's equal or less than my own bodyweight. I also like scary movies and surfing the internet." She said in a low tone that was barely above a whisper.

While all of this was going Midoriya was mentally kicking himself for not having one of his hero notebooks on him. His classmates all had such amazing quirks and he was having a hard time containing himself. On top of that, the fact that he was actually a part of a conversation, with girls no less, was still a bit hard to process. It was only after a few seconds that he realized that everyone was now waiting on him to re-introduce himself.

"O-oh right." He lightly blushed while scratching his cheek.

'_Now that I think about it, he's actually kinda cute. And he looks way better without the layer of dirt on him.'_ Tokage thought while watching the shy teen.

"I'm Izuku Midoriya. A-and my quirk is telekinesis." He stated rather nervously.

"Oh cool, so you two pretty much have the same quirk." Kendou was the first to point this out.

"I-I guess you could say that."

"So, which one of you do you think is stronger?" Tetsutetsu asked while taking a bite out of a piece of steak.

Tokage was quick to scold the brashness of her longtime friend with a not-so-subtle elbow to the arm. Even if she wanted to know the answer to that question herself. "Dude, c'mon! Don't be an ass."

"Sorry."

"It's f-fine, Tetsutetsu-san." Midoriya waved off.

"Well, how much weight are you able to manipulate, Midoriya-san?" A lazy blue eye looked at the boy. For a second, Midoriya was slightly unnerved by the stoic gaze the pale girl was giving him. But he was able to regain his cool in time.

"I haven't really t-tested my m-maximum in a while. B-but the last time I tried, I was able to pick up an old bus. Though, I'm not really sure how much that is." The boy awkwardly laughed.

A silence fell over the table after that. And Midoriya suddenly found himself shrinking under the gaze that his new classmates were giving him. Was he not supposed to say that? Was that not normal? Did it come off as him bragging? The last thing he wanted was for people to think of him as stuck up. Maybe he should've just fudged the truth a bit.

What he neglected to tell them was that he barely managed to get the thing a meter off the ground before suffering a pretty severe nosebleed and passing out for a few hours. Or the three days of headaches that followed.

"Midoriya-san…." Yanagi's pale stare was trained right back onto him. "That's incredible."

"Y-you think s-so?"

"Of course, very few people with telekinetic quirks have that kind of strength."

"Hey, I have a question." Tokage spoke up, hoping to get some more information on this mystery boy. "Does that mean that you can fly?"

"W-well…."

"I sorry, is it acceptable to me for sit with you?" A nervous voice in a weird accent suddenly cut him off. The group redirected their attention towards the other end of the table. And what they were met with was the horned girl from their class, Pony Tsunotori.

If Midoriya remembered correctly, she was the American exchange student in their class. Her Japanese was pretty good, but her grammar did have some room for improvement.

"Many tables here are taken and I wish to not want to sit alone." The blonde haired girl continued with a slight blush.

The students looked around at each other in confusion for a brief moment before Midoriya spoke up.

"_It's no problem, Tsunotori-san. T-there's plenty of room."_ The boy responded in her native tongue.

This caused Tsunotori's eyes to blow open at hearing someone else speak to her in a language that she could actually understand perfectly. "_You speak English?!"_

"_Not very well, sorry."_

"_Oh man, this is such a relief."_ The girl said before taking the open seat next to Tokage. "_Thank you so much, Midoriya. I was worried I wouldn't find anywhere to sit."_

"_It's no problem."_

"_Wow Moptop, you're certainly full of surprises aren't you?"_ Now it was Tokage's turn to flex her foreign language skills a bit.

"_You speak English too? That's awesome!"_ Tsunotroi practically cheered at this new development.

"Hey as cool as it that you all know another language, I'd like to know what's going on." Tetsutetsu scowled at Tokage.

"Maybe if you paid attention in class, you _would _know what was going on, Metalhead." The girl immediately shot back.

Tokage's statement earned a few laughs from most of everyone else at the table. After that, the conversations went on as normally as one would expect from the new classmates. Although he tried his best to be engaged in the conversation, Midoriya was still having a difficult time adjusting to actually eating lunch with other people for once.

Up until this point, no one had ever wanted to be seen talking to him let alone sitting at the same table with him. And the fact that he hadn't been to school in months didn't help either. It was certainly an interesting change of pace, but there was still a need to get used to something like this.

* * *

_~P.E. Grounds After Lunch~_

Following their lunch, the students of 1-B were told to get dressed in their gym uniforms, head out to the P.E. Grounds and wait for Kan to show up. Midoriya ended up being the first one done and was nervously waiting by himself.

Everything so far today had been going good. Actually, it was better than good, it was great. Today was the first time in years that he didn't have to worry about getting beat up or ridiculed for just existing. It was almost as if the boy had traveled to a completely different universe. He still couldn't shake the nerves that he was feeling ever since waking up this morning. But at the very least, he didn't have to chronically look over his shoulder every five seconds. Before his mind could descend any further, a female voice broke the broccoli headed teen's train of thought.

"Well, it looks like the two of us are the first ones done." Tokage flashed Midoriya a toothy grin as she walked up to him.

"Y-yeah." He nervously replied.

"Y'know…" The girl placed her hands on her hips and leaned in a little too close for his comfort. "If my memory is correct, you owe me a granola bar."

"Oh…so you do remember after all." His face shifted into a downcast expression.

Oh yeah, there was this entire issue that he needed to worry about. Seeing the girl when he first walked into the classroom this morning was definitely a shock for him. A part of Midoriya hoped that she didn't recognize him as easily as he recognized her. But her previous statement told him otherwise.

"Not gonna lie, it took me a minute after seeing your face. But not a lot of people are running around with freckles and green hair." She smirked once again. "I got a ton of questions, but we can save those for some time after class."

"Huh?" He tilted his head in confusion.

"Let's hang out after class sometime. Maybe we can get smoothies or something?" She asked before realizing that the boy might be tight on cash. "If you don't have enough money then-"

"Y-you w-want to hang out…with me?" His confusion grew even deeper

"Of course I do!"

"Why-"

"Man, you two sure get dressed fast!" The voice of Tetsutetsu interrupted his question. The two teens looked behind them to see the silver haired boy along with Juzo Honenuki and Yanagi making their way over to them. It was only now that Midoriya realized that the gray haired girl walked with a rather peculiar posture, not unlike that of a zombie.

"What's up? I don't think we got a chance to properly introduce ourselves. I'm Juzo Honenuki, but you guys can just call me Juzo." The lipless teen extended his hand out towards the two greenette's.

"How's it going?"

"So, what were you guys talking about?" Tetsutetsu inquired.

"Oh nothing, I was just trying to convince Moptop here to go out on a date with me." Tokage said as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"Huh?" Midoriya's face immediately lit up like a Christmas tree and he suddenly found himself without the ability to produce actual words. Instead, the boy just gawked at her as if she had grown a second head.

"Pfft!" Tokage tried holding in her laughter. "Oh man, you're too easy!" She patted Midoriya on the shoulder while trying to hold herself up.

"You should probably get used to her saying stuff like that. She's always been like this."

"Well, you guys seem like a pretty fun batch of people." Honenuki chuckled at his classmate's antics.

Before long, the rest of the class showed up along with their teacher. No one had any idea what they were about to do. But if the fact that they were in their gym uniforms was any indication, then it was probably going to be something physical.

"Alright, listen up! This afternoon, we're going to be doing something called a quirk apprehension test." Kan announced to the group of wannabe heroes. Earning more than a few confused looks. "You all remember the fitness test that you had to do in middle school, right?"

All of the students minus Tsunotori nodded in confirmation.

"To put it simply, we're going to be doing the same thing. Except unlike your middle school days, for this test you will be able to use your quirks as you see fit." The white haired man continued.

A brief moment passed before a fit of murmurs erupted amongst the 1-B students as everyone tried to process this information. However, before anyone had a chance to get any more information, Kan spoke up once again.

"Midoriya, out of everyone in the class you got the highest score on the entrance exam if I'm not mistaken."

Nineteen pairs of eyes suddenly shifted onto the green haired boy and Midoriya wanted nothing more than to shrink and jump into a bottomless hole. He already knew that he did relatively well on the entrance exam but it wasn't like he got first place.

"Nice going, Moptop." Tokage playfully elbowed him on the arm, causing him to blush even more than what he already was.

"Here!" Kan tossed the green haired boy a white softball. "While standing inside that circle, I want you to throw that ball as far as you can with your quirk. Anything goes as long as you don't step outside of it." He said while pointing to the area.

All Midoriya did was nod and shakily walk up to the designated spot. Everyone watched as the boy tossed the ball up and down his hand a few times as he considered what he was going to do.

'_Okay, this shouldn't be too hard. All I need to do is just carry the ball as far as I can. I think my limit is still somewhere around four hundred meters.'_ He thought before taking in a deep breath and floating the ball in his hand. The entire class stood silent as they witnessed the green haired teen simply extend his hand outward, sending the ball flying at a pretty decent speed. By the time it stopped, it was further away than what most people could see.

"Four hundred meters even." Kan announced while showing everyone the score on his phone.

"Damn, that's far as hell." Tsuburaba whispered.

"How am I supposed to compete with that?"

'_That's over ten times further than my maximum range.'_ Yanagi thought.

"This is going to be pretty awesome!" Another student cheered.

"I want to see what you all are made of, so don't half-ass these tests. I expect each and every one of you put forth maximum effort. Don't let me find out that you're slacking, you won't like the result."

"Yes, sensei!" Most of the students cried out in response.

Following Midoriya's attempt at the ball throw, the rest of the students lined up and took their own turns. Overall the rest of the class did pretty well in this event. Kendou came in second place with a respectable three hundred and fifty-nine meter throw. Monoma, while using Kendou's quirk, came in third place with a three hundred meter toss. And Tokage got fifth after dethatching on of her arms as far as she could before throwing the ball the rest of the way.

* * *

_~Long Jump~_

The second event was the standing long jump. Based on what Midoriya had seen of his classmate's quirks so far, very few of them had abilities that would really give them an edge in this one. Just like before, the green haired boy was the first one called up, along with Tokage to get their attempts over with.

"So Moptop, are you gunning for first place?" Tokage smiled as the two lined up at the starting point.

"I-I'm just going to do my best." He responded.

"You two are good to go whenever you're ready!" Kan announced.

Tokage was the first to move. The green haired girl dethatched her torso from her legs and floated herself over to clear the sand pit. A few of the students watching couldn't help but feel a slight bit of vomit making its way up their throats, but it only took a second for them to let that pass.

As for Midoriya, the boy simply used his quirk to float over sand pit. Gently setting himself down right next to the girl.

"Oh, so you _can _fly?" Tokage questioned after watching that display.

"I w-wouldn't really call it flying. I can use my q-quirk to move myself around but it's pretty hard to do and I can do it for too long." He explained while bashfully scratching his cheek and looking away from her.

"It's still a pretty good skill to have." She shot back.

* * *

_~50 Meter Dash~_

Midoriya was the next student called up to do his run along with the horned girl, Pony Tsunotori. The two teenagers got in their starting positions and the young American flashed him a quick smile before crouching down to all fours. Midoriya was curious to see how the girl would navigate this obstacle, but for the moment he had to focus on himself.

"Go!" The robot shouted, signaling them to begin.

Everyone watched a cloud of dust suddenly appear as Tsunotori took off like a rocket. The horned teen moved so fast that barely anyone saw her cross the finish line. In the other lane, Midoriya simply used his telekinetic ability to fly across as fast he could. He was able to move at faster speeds with relative ease in short bursts. It was when he tried to prolong his air time that the headaches and nosebleeds started to occur.

"Lane 1: 3.89 seconds. Lane 2: 4.36 seconds." The robot announced the times for Tsunotori and Midoriya respectively.

"_Not bad, Midoriya. Your power is pretty awesome."_ The girl said to him.

"_T-t-thank you, Tsunotori-san."_ The boy blushed after being praised for his quirk. Something that he still wasn't used to.

* * *

The rest of the events went off without a hitch. Tokage felt pretty confident with herself and her performance, but didn't want to jinx it. Once everything was said and done, Kan gathered up all of the students to announce the final placement for the test.

"Alright, I've compiled up the scores for you all. So let's see how well everyone did." The white haired man spoke while slightly fumbling with the controller.

The 1-B students collectively held their breath as they waited to see what the verdict was. Of course, everyone had given the tests their all, but they were still curious as to how well they did or did not do.

Final Result:

1\. Neito Monoma

2\. Jurota Shishida

3\. Itsuka Kendou

4\. Izuku Midoriya

5\. Setsuna Tokage

6\. Ibara Shiozaki

7\. Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu

8\. Pony Tsunotori

9\. Juzo Honenuki

10\. Kojiro Bondo

11\. Yui Kodai

12\. Togaru Kamakiri

13\. Kosei Tsuburaba

14\. Yosetsu Awase

15\. Reiko Yanagi

16\. Sen Kaibara

17\. Shihai Kuroiro

18\. Nirengeki Shoda

19\. Manga Fukidashi

20\. Kinoko Komori

The short brunette girl let out a defeated sigh after seeing her name at the bottom on the list. Kendou did her best to console the downtrodden teen while silently cheering that she managed to get third place.

"The reason I had you do this test was because I wanted to see how creative you all are." Kan began before Shishida raised his hand.

"Sensei, can you please elaborate?" The furry teen asked.

"Of course" The man nodded. "Real life situations are never going to be cut and dry. Sometimes you'll have to use your wits to achieve victory over an opponent who has an advantage over you. The point of this test was to get you to use your quirks creatively and start thinking about the different ways to apply them. No one had a quirk perfectly suited to every situation. That's how it goes when you're out in the field."

"That makes a lot of sense." Tetsutetsu said while nodding his head.

"But one thing I want you all to take away from this little exam is not let these scores discourage you. Those at the top of the list, don't get complacent and think that you're above anyone else. Those at the bottom, use this as a learning experience to motivate you. It's only the first day, you still have a lot of room for improvement, all of you."

"Yes sir!" Half the class cheered.

"Alright, that is all we have for you guys today, you're all free to head home. Come prepared, because tomorrow we're gonna hit the ground running."

"Yes sir!" The students repeated before finally being dismissed.

* * *

After getting dressed and packing up his things, Midoriya was making his way towards the front gate when the voice of Tokage caught his attention.

"Yo, Moptop!" She called out.

The boy turned around to see the green haired teen along with Tetsutetsu and Yanagi. He was curious about why the girl called him out. But didn't really have a chance to think about it before she was literally right in front of him.

"So, are we still on for that smoothie?" She asked.

'_She's so close!'_

"I'm s-sorry, Tokage-san." The boy bowed along with his apology. "I have to get back home. My mom needed to me to help her around the house."

That statement was definitely enough to confuse the green haired girl. Home? So he did have somewhere to live. And his mom? So he wasn't by himself. The entire day she thought the guy was living at some shelter or something. Which you couldn't blame her considering the last time she saw him. But now she had a lot more questions she wanted to ask.

"Fine, but I still have questions."

"I-I understand." He simply said before giving one final bow and making his way home. Leaving Tokage's curiosity even higher than it was a second ago.

* * *

Katsuki Bakugou was absolutely furious. Not only did he get third place on Aizawa's bullshit quirk test, but he lost out to that black haired bimbo and the half-and-half bastard. He was hoping to come into class and show everyone who the top dog is right out the gate. But now he would have to wait for his next opportunity to assert his dominance over those damn extras.

The ashen blonde teen barely made it out the front door of the school when he spotted a patch of wild green hair in the distance before disappearing around the corner.

There was no way, his eyes were playing tricks on him. There absolutely no way in hell that quirkless loser was there. The '_explosion'_ quirk user shook his head for a second before continuing his journey home.

It had been months since he had seen that useless waste of space known as "Deku". He doesn't know what happened to him, and frankly he didn't care. For all he knew, that quirkless loser finally got with the program and gave up on trying to be a hero.


	3. Battle Trial

The following afternoon, the students of 1-B were patiently waiting for their first actual heroics class to begin. After all, this class was the sole reason for them even being at this school in the first place. You could almost feel the anticipation in the air as everyone started whispering about what they were going to do. However, the hopeful heroes of tomorrow didn't have to wait long before a certain blonde haired man made his appearance.

"I am…" Nearly everyone's hearts stopped. "Coming through the door like a normal person!" All Might announced with as much bluster as one would expect.

"Holy fuck! It's All Might!" Awase blurted out, earning a disapproving look from Shiozaki.

"Oh man, I heard he was supposed to be a teacher here. But I thought it was a joke!" Kaibara followed.

"Isn't that one of his retro costumes?" Fukidashi's speech bubble read.

"That is definitely _not_ how a normal person goes through a door." Monoma silently said.

Tokage herself was having a hard time containing her excitement along with the rest of her classmates. It's not every day that you get to be in the same room as the number one hero. The large man standing in front of the classroom was a living legend. Midnight was still her all time favorite hero, but All Might was definitely in her top five.

While everyone was busy gawking at their new teacher, the girl's eyes flashed over to Midoriya. Out of all the students, he was the only one not saying anything. She could only see a part of his face from where she was sitting. But his expression looked...stale, if she had to put a word to it.

After a short introduction, All Might announced that they were going to skip the training wheels and get right into battle training. All though there were a few concerns, most everyone was more than willing to jump right into class. With the click of a remote that came seemingly out of nowhere, the blonde haired man instructed his students to get into their costumes and head to "Training Ground Beta".

In the blink of an eye, everyone hopped out of their seats and made their way to the locker rooms. Excitement practically dripping out of their pores.

* * *

In no time, the students of 1-B were waiting outside the front gates of the training area. Well, everyone minus a certain freckled teenager.

"S-Sorry everyone." The boy apologized after being the last one to show up.

"Man Moptop, you certainly picked function over fashion, didn't you?" Tokage grinned at him while taking in his outfit.

To say that Midoriya's costume was "simple" would be a fairly accurate assessment. The boy was dressed in a plain black long-sleeved, hooded t-shirt, and black pants tucked into a pair of black combat boots. He also wore a black, military-style protective vest over the t-shirt with a pair of fingerless gloves. The whole ensemble screamed "stealth". And "don't look at me".

Tokage couldn't help but notice how tightly the shirt clung to the boy's arms. You couldn't tell based on how baggy his school uniform was, but the shy, green haired teen definitely knew his way around a weight room. '_Oh yeah…mama likes.'_ She grinned outwardly.

On the flip side, Midoriya was doing everything he could not to look at his classmate's costume. Tokage was in a rather…fitting blue bodysuit. Like his, the overall design was simple along with some orange guards on her wrists and a matching blue domino mask. But the outfit did leave little to the imagination in terms of her figure.

"I like it." Kendou said about the boy's costume. "It suits you. You don't really strike me as a flashy kind of guy anyway."

"T-thank you, but actually it's not complete yet." The boy awkwardly admitted.

"Really?" Yanagi asked, wondering what else he could possibly need.

"Yeah, I sent my request form in late so my helmet wasn't completed in time."

"That super bad." Tsunotori added.

"Alright, young students! This afternoon you will all be participating in two-on-two indoor, anti-personnel battle drills." The man known as the "Symbol of Peace" announced in his boisterous tone while reading an index card. "You will draw lots to decide the pairs. One group will be the "heroes" the other will be the "villains". The heroes must get to the objective while the villains must defend the artificial bomb that you see on the monitor before you. Are there any questions?"

"We're just going right into it?" Tsuburaba raised his hand. "Like, we're just gonna nosedive right into fighting each other?"

"Yeah, it feels like we're skipping a few steps." Kaibara added.

"The best way to learn is through experience!" All Might answered.

With no further questions and their objective pretty clear, the students drew lots to see who would be paired up with whom. When it came his turn to pick, Midoriya ended up with Team A. He searched around for a moment before Tetsutetsu revealed himself to be his partner. Midoriya had no problem with this match up, the silver haired teen seemed like a really nice guy and his '_steel'_ quirk was definitely something to be feared.

"Now without further delay, let's see who the first match up will be!" All Might said before pulling out two labeled balls from a box that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "Team A will be the villains, and Team E will be the heroes!"

"Alright!" Tokage suddenly cheered next to Yanagi after hearing their group get called. "I hope you guys are ready to lose." The green haired girl flashed a grin towards the two boys.

"Tch, yeah right." Tetsutetsu scoffed with casually waving her off.

"I like the enthusiasm!" The pro hero interjected. "Team A will have ten minutes to hide the weapon and get prepared. Team E, wait outside the training building and await my signal."

"Yes, sensei." The students answered in unison before exiting the monitoring room.

* * *

"So...you can pretty much just move anything with your mind, right?" Tetsutetsu asked Midoriya as the '_telekinesis'_ quirk user carried the paper mache bomb up the stairwell. Despite its size, the thing barely weighed more than 30kg.

"Well, that's the simple way to put it."

"Then this will be an easy win!"

"I don't think it's a good idea to underestimate our opponents, Tetsutetsu-san."

The silver haired teen practically deflated at the boy's words. "Yeah, you're right."

"You're friends with Tokage-san, right? What can you tell me about her quirk?"

After the brief explanation about the girl's abilities, Midoriya was almost at a loss for words. Not only was Tokage's power incredibly versatile, but its applications were nearly endless. If it wasn't for the fact that they were in the middle of a training exercise, he would've already started cataloging this in his notebook.

With about two minutes left to spare, Midoriya was finally able to piece together a good enough strategy on how to best protect the bomb. The plan was rather simple, and completely depended on what their opponents were going to do. But with Tetsutetsu's reassurance, it had a pretty high chance of success.

* * *

"So Yanagi, how did you want to play this?"

"You seem to be rather friendly with Tetsutetsu-san, what do you think he would do in a situation like this?"

"Well, I've known the guy for years." Tokage said before a quick laugh escaped her mouth. "Knowing him, he'll just want to meet us head on and get into a slugfest. He thinks with his fists more than his actual brain.

"I see." The gray haired girl nodded. "And even though we have similar quirks, Midoriya-san is much stronger than I am. He seems like he would be quite the obstacle to deal with."

"Yeah, you're right." The sharp toothed teen tapped a finger to her chin before the lightbulb went off. "Oh, I have a plan! But I need to know how exactly your quirk works."

* * *

"**Alright students, begin!"** The voice of All Might boomed over their ear pieces.

Outside the building, the two girls wasted no time in putting their plan into action. Right as they entered, Tokage detached one of her eyes and used it to scout ahead. Even with all the training she had been doing over the last year, her range was limited to about fifty meters right now. But that was more than enough to give her and her partner the edge.

"Do you see anything yet?"

"Well, they're not on the first floor, I can tell you that." She responded while sending her free floating appendage up another floor. Tokage was glad that she didn't have to use any more pieces other than the one eyeball, seeing as any more would just drain her stamina further.

Barely a few meters into the second floor, Tokage spotted Tetsutetsu wandering around the halls. Luckily he hadn't spotted her. But judging by the look on his face, he was definitely on the hunt. She didn't see Midoriya anywhere, so it was safe to assume what their strategy was. More than likely Tetsutetsu was sent ahead to waste time while his partner kept the bomb safe somewhere else.

With a pretty decent grasp on the situation, the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user quickly recalled her eyeball to save some energy.

"Alright, Metalhead is on the move on the next floor and I don't see Moptop anywhere. So it's safe to assume that he's holding the bomb somewhere else and Metalhead is going to be a distraction."

A brief moment passed while Yanagi looked at the girl stoically. "So do you just give everyone you meet a weird nickname?"

"Only if I like you!" Tokage smirked.

"What would mine be then? If you were to give one to me."

Tokage looked the girl up and down for a second while taking in her appearance. Pale skin, grey hair, weird posture, emotionless face. She had the perfect nickname for her partner. "Ghosty."

"Let's just hurry up, we don't have a lot of time left." The girl flatly stated before making her way up the staircase.

'_I thought it was pretty good.'_ Tokage shrugged.

The girls proceeded to advance to the next floor and started trailing the silver haired teen. They made sure to keep their distance as to not alert him of their presence.

"**Ten minutes left!"** All Might suddenly shouted in their ears.

"Alright, here's the plan." Tokage whispered to her partner. "As soon as he turns the next corner, we bum rush him and put the capture tape on him. Metalhead is strong as hell, but his reaction time is pretty garbage. After that, we get him to tell us where the bomb is, and then the two of us use that information to blindside Midoriya."

"Okay." The gray haired girl nodded.

They trailed Tetsutetsu for another thirty seconds and sure enough, right when the boy turned onto the next hall the two girls rushed him. The silver haired teen barely knew what hit him when Tokage detached both of her arms and used them to grab him by the ankles and take his feet out from under him. Yanagi quickly followed up by wrapping the capture tape around his wrists, but Tetsutetsu was able to call out to his partner before being defeated.

"Midoriya, they're both on second floor!"

"**Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu has been captured!"**

"Alright Metalhead, where's your partner?!" Tokage asked him in an aggressive tone.

"Like I'd ever tell you!" He shot back before turning his head in mock disgust.

Tokage paused to look at him for a moment while considering her next move. Sure he was captured, but that didn't mean that he was out of play. And with their time running out, she needed as much information as she could get. Without a second thought, the green haired girl decided to test the waters on what was and wasn't allowed by shoving her fingers up the boy's nose.

"Ah! What the hell are you doing?! Stop!" The boy shouted in agony at the feeling of her nails digging into his nostrils.

"Nope, not until you tell me where your partner is!" She told him. The struggle continued on for a good few seconds before the boy finally relented and gave into her demands. While this was happening, Yanagi wasn't exactly sure on what to do.

"Okay, he's on the fourth floor!"

"Are you lying to me?" She dug her fingers in a little deeper.

"No, dammit!"

Satisfied with that answer, Tokage released her grip on his nose and wiped her hands off on in his hair. "Alright Yanagi, let's get moving!"

* * *

Back at the viewing room, everyone watching blanched at the sight of Tokage's impromptu interrogation. And how effective it seemed to be.

"That was...something else."

"It _was_ a good idea."

"Can't argue with you there."

"It was a pretty dirty move though."

"Isn't there an old expression about picking your friend's noses?"

* * *

With time running out, the two girls ran up the steps and made their way to the fourth floor. When they arrived, they were met with large open area. There was nothing on the entire floor besides a few support pillars and one Izuku Midoriya patiently waiting in the middle of the room.

"Alright Moptop, where's the bomb at?" The girl asked him.

"Sorry, Tokage-san. But I'm not telling you."

"Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. There's two of us and one of you." She attempted to taunt him.

"Well, I just have to hold on until time runs out, right?"

"I like the confidence." She smirked before a rather devious idea popped into her head. "How about we cut a deal?"

"Huh?" He quirked an eyebrow at her.

"If you tell me where the bomb is, I'll let you touch my boobs."

"What?!" Midoriya's face erupted into a shade of crimson at the girl's words. With the green haired teen thrown off guard, Tokage detached both of her arms and sent them flying at him. In his momentary stupor, Midoriya wasn't able to react fast enough to avoid getting hit.

"Yanagi, go look for the bomb. I'll deal with this."

"Okay." The gray haired girl nodded before heading towards the staircase.

After lifting himself up off the ground, Midoriya quickly got his wits about him and focused on his opponent. Thankfully, he had planned for something like this so he was ready for some type of altercation.

The reason he chose this floor was because of all the loose debris laying around. Granted, nothing that could be used as ammunition was necessarily lethal. But there was enough to knock someone on their butt for a few minutes.

Just as he lifted up a couple of old crates on the other side of the room, his vision suddenly went dark. Evidently, Tokage had wrapped her hands around his face. As soon as everything went black, the crates dropped to the floor.

'_So either he can't control things that he can't see, or the shock made him lose focus.'_ The girl wondered. She didn't get a chance to analyze the situation a bit further before Midoriya tore her hands off of his face and held them in place to prevent her from taking them back.

"**Three minutes left!"**

"Shit!" She cursed only a second before her earpiece activated.

"Tokage-san, the bombs not in here. I searched through both floors and it's gone." Yanagi announced

"What?" She turned her attention back to her opponent. "Where the hell is it, Moptop?"

The only response she got was the wooden crates from before colliding with her left side and knocking her off balance. Without her hands to keep herself from hitting the ground, Tokage braced herself to eat a face full of concrete. However, her untimely lip-locking session with mother Earth never happened.

The girl opened her eyes to see that she was hovering a few centimeters above the ground before upturning her gaze to see that Midoriya had his hand extended out towards her. '_He stopped me from falling?'_

"Are you okay?" The boy asked sincerely.

"Since when is it a good idea to worry about your enemies' safety?"

"W-well, we may be opponents b-but we're still classmates." He responded, leaving Tokage speechless for a second.

Midoriya decided to keep his hold on the girl until the remainder of the time limit ran out. Tokage did try more than a few times to break free of his grip. But considering she was being suspended in the air by an invisible force, it didn't really do much good.

"**Villain team wins!"** All Might announced boisterously. "**Everyone please return to the viewing room for your review."**

The boy released his grip on Tokage's arms while gently setting her on the ground. While at the same time, Yanagi had just made it back downstairs in time to hear the announcement.

"What happened?" The gray haired teen inquired.

"Moptop got the better of me?" Tokage quickly answered. "Are you sure you looked everywhere for the bomb?"

"I searched the entire floor. It's gone."

The two girls turned their heads towards Midoriya for some type of explanation. The boy shrunk under their gazes and took a shaky step back before telling what they wanted to know.

"I-it's on the roof."

"Are you serious?" Tokage deadpanned. Of course it was, where else would they hide it but on top of the building. To be honest, it didn't even occur to the girl to check the place from top to bottom. Although she was impressed at Midoriya and Tetsutetsu outsmarting her, she was mentally kicking herself for overlooking something so obvious.

'_Well, I guess I might as well use this as a learning experience.'_

* * *

"An excellent showing you four!" All Might told them with a thumbs up after their return to the viewing room. "You all did admirably well for your first exercise. Passing marks, all around." The blonde haired man then turned to the rest of class. "Who do you all think is the MVP of this scenario?"

Honenuki and Monoma raised their hands at the same time, but the lipless teen was the first to speak. "Either Midoriya-san or Tokage-san. Tokage-san's plans were well thought of and executed for having to come up with everything on the fly. And Midoriya-san's plan to keep the bomb away from the two was effective if not a bit reckless."

Monoma was quick to follow up. "I agree with Honenuki-san. For the sake of the scenario, Midoriya-san floating the bomb to the roof was a good idea. But in real life, putting such a dangerous weapon out in the open like that is way too risky."

"Tokage-san's idea to hold off Midoriya-san while Yanagi-san searched for the bomb was also good. But they had a mismatch when it came to quirks. It would have been more effective if they switched roles." Kendou was next to speak up.

'_They're really not pulling their punches, huh?'_ Tokage and Midoriya both thought.

'_Man, kids these days are smart.'_ All Might sweat dropped.

"Excellent points from all of you! Now, let's see who our next match up is going to be." The man proceeded to pull out two balls labelled C and D. "The villains will be young Kendou and young Kamakiri. The heroes, young Honenuki and young Kaibara."

* * *

The rest of the battle training went on relatively uneventful. Despite his best efforts to keep himself composed, Midoriya couldn't help but make a few comments here and there about how awesome his classmate's quirks were. He was particularly interested in Shiozaki's vines and Fukidashi's comic projection. He also wanted to know how Yanagi's telekinesis was different from his own.

Before they knew it, the students of 1-B found themselves heading home after another successful day of class. Today was one of the few days of the week that Midoriya wasn't heading straight home. Instead of his usual route, he was on the train to Saitama Prefecture.

"Hey Moptop, I didn't know you took this train home." Tokage tapped him on the shoulder, startling the '_telekinesis'_ quirk user in the process.

"I d-don't actually." He shyly replied while turning around.

"So what gives? Where are ya' going?" Tetsutetsu asked.

"S-Saitama Prefecture."

Tokage gave him a wide grin and a weird gaze after hearing that. "What a coincidence, that's where we live." She pointed a thumb at Tetsutetsu and then back to herself.

"Why are you going that way? I thought you said you live in Shizuoka."

The boy paused for a brief moment and looked at his hands nervously before working up the nerve to answer. "I-I'm actually volunteering at an orphanage over there. I've been d-doing it for a while now."

"Damn dude, that's pretty awesome of you."

"Seriously, first you save me from eating shit earlier today in training. Now you spend your free time helping out the less fortunate. Are you just like, made of puppies and sunshine?" Tokage playfully patted him on the shoulder, causing the boy to blush. "Hey, I guess now we can finally get that smoothie you owe me."

"What?" Tetsutetsu gave her a confused look.

"Y-you were serious about that?"

"Of course I was." She smiled back at him.

Not too long after, the three students departed their train and made their way to a smoothie stand not too far from the station.

'_Is this really happening right now?!'_ Midoriya internally screamed as walked a couple of steps behind his two classmates. The entire experience was weird for the boy, if he was being honest. He was actually hanging out with people his age. Not too long ago, something like this would've been chalked up to a fantasy for him.

"I'd like to stick around, but I gotta get home. I'll see you guys later!" Tetsutetsu said before heading down the connecting road.

"I'll see you in the morning." Tokage waved.

There was a very awkward silence between the two greenettes for the next couple of minutes. Eventually Tokage became fed up with this and decided to just get on with her inquiry.

'_Oh my God, I'm actually walking with a girl!'_

"So, how much further away is this orphanage?" The girl asked, hoping to ease into the conversation.

"It's l-like a ten minute walk. I-I have to make a left at the shopping center."

"Good, I have to take a right up there. But that gives us plenty of time for the two of us to talk."

"R-right." He nervously shook his head.

"Look, I'm not gonna ask you everything about your personal life, alright." She started off, hoping to ease his nerves a bit. "I honestly don't know what I want to ask. I'm just…curious."

"It's f-f-fine, I understand what you mean."

"Just answer me this, where'd you run off too after we met? Y'know it's rude to pull a "dine and dash" on a beautiful young lady." She sneered in between sips of her grape smoothie.

"Honestly, I can't remember. Most of that time is just a giant blur." He said, before quickly regretting that he allowed those words to come out of his mouth.

"That's understandable." The girl shrugged. "So…besides hanging out in dirty back alleys and volunteering at this orphanage, what do you like to do?"

"Why?"

"Because I want to know more about you, duh?"

"R-really?" He asked with genuine surprise on his face.

"Yeah, you're a pretty interesting guy."

"H-honestly, there's not a lot to tell. I'm a pretty boring person to be honest. All I really do is study and workout."

"Yeah, I can see that~." The green haired girl grinned while very obviously checking him out. Midoriya noticed this and absentmindedly covered himself with his arms to avoid her predator-like gaze.

"W-w-what about you, Tokage-san? What do you like to do?" He quickly tried changing subjects.

"Watch movies, learn about reptiles and be lazy."

"Oh."

The conversation continued on like that for the rest of their walk together. Tokage actually did most of the talking while Midoriya just nodded and agreed with most of everything that she said. When the two finally had to part ways. Tokage felt pretty satisfied with this impromptu walk home. Sure, she didn't get all of the answers that she was looking for, but it was definitely a start. One thing was clear in her mind though.

She definitely wanted to get to know this guy some more.

* * *

When Tokage walked back into her house that afternoon, she was met with silence. Granted, this wasn't an unusual occurrence for her, especially nowadays. But there was something to be said about actually having someone to greet you upon your return.

"Dad?!" She called out a couple of times, hoping for some type of response. However, the only answer she got in return was the sound of the wind lightly blowing through the half-open kitchen window.

Without missing a beat, the green haired girl made her way to the kitchen to close the window before heading over to the pantry to grab her favorite dinosaur shaped cookies that usually served as her after school snack. Along the way, she glanced over at the dining room table where her father had left some money and a handwritten note.

"_Had to head over to the lab for some emergency repairs. I probably won't be back until tomorrow morning. Order takeout if you don't feel like cooking anything. Sorry for not texting you earlier, but I forgot to charge my phone. Call me if you need anything._

_-Love, Dad_

_P.S.: If your sister drops by, tell her to stop eating all of my pretzels!"_

"Well...at least he decided to leave a note this time." Tokage said to herself with a deep sigh. After placing the paper down on the table, she decided not to dwell on it any further. The girl wasted no time in ordering some udon noodles from the shop down the road and nosedived right into taking care of her homework while snacking on her dinosaur cookies. At the very least, no one was going to interrupt her studies.


	4. Changeup

Life at U.A. really was all that it was cracked up to be, Tokage told herself as she made her way through the hallway en route to class. It may have only been the first week of the new school year, but it was pretty apparent as to why U.A. was considered the top hero school in Japan by so many. Classes like English, math and world history were about as easy for Tokage as they had been in middle school. Which didn't bother her one bit considering that she never had an issue maintaining anything lower than an 'A' her entire life. Her two favorite classes were heroics, for obvious reasons. And hero art history, but that was mainly because Kayama was the one teaching and it seemed like it'd be the easiest class out of all the others.

It also helped that her classmates were pretty easy to get along with. Sure there were a few over-the-top personalities, most notably a certain blonde haired weasel by the name of Neito Monoma. But overall everyone seemed to be rather enjoyable. Her circle of friends had even grown a bit since class started. Naturally, she hung out with Tetsutetsu pretty much all day. But Kendou had joined her group as well. The orange haired girl seemed like the responsible and slightly overbearing type, but she was good people. However, there was one student in particular that Tokage just couldn't get a read on.

Izuku Midoriya, for lack of a better word the guy was "odd". Not necessarily in a bad way, but the way he acted definitely raised a few curious flags in Tokage's mind.

First and foremost, the guy was rather shy. Actually, "shy" probably wasn't really a good word for it. The green haired boy was particularly standoffish, skittish and jumpy. He rarely ever said anything and never spoke to anyone unless spoken to first. He definitely didn't come off as rude in any sort of way, but it was definitely weird.

The second reason was that after the first day of class, she never saw him during lunch. Practically their entire class sat together when it came time for their afternoon break. But for some reason, Midoriya went missing until it came time for class to start again. And today was no different.

Today was a particularly bright and shiny day. The skies were clear and the temperature was just right. After a suggestion from Kendou, almost all of 1-B decided to spend their lunch outside instead of in the cafeteria with everyone else. The only people who weren't present at the moment were Midoriya and Monoma. The latter apparently had to run to the bathroom but hadn't returned for a while.

Everything was going pretty smooth, that was until the school's alarm went off. The students paused for a moment as the automated voice alerted them a level three security breach.

"What the hell does that mean?" Kamakiri looked around.

"I-I think it means that someone's managed to get passed the school barriers." Shoda said nervously.

"Oh shit, do you think some villain's got into the school?" Kaibara's comment was enough to cause the hero course hopefuls to start panicking. In the blink of an eye, the students abandoned their food and started rushing towards one of the nearby doors. As expected, the future heroes started shoving one another to get inside to safety.

"Everyone calm down!" The voice of Kendou shouted, causing everyone to stop in their tracks. The students all turned their heads towards the orange haired teen who was glaring at them in an annoyed fashion. "Panicking like a bunch of scared children is only going to make things worse!"

"She's right." Tokage added on after freeing herself from in between Kuroiro and Bondo.

"I don't know what's going on, but our best bet is just head back to the classroom and wait for Kan-sensei. No doubt everyone inside is panicking as well and adding on to it won't help the situation. Let's just head back to class in a neat and orderly fashion, please." The orange haired teen commanded.

"We need to figure out where Monoma and Midoriya are too." Tokage stated while looking around. "Does anybody have any clue where those two disapeared to?"

"I'll shoot Monoma a text." Tsuburaba said while pulling out his phone.

"Tell him to head back to the classroom. We can deal with finding Midoriya-san after we make sure that everyone is safe." Kendou ordered the '_solid air'_ user.

The entire class nodded before quickly making their way back to their assigned classroom. They were pretty far away from the cafeteria where most of the student body was before the alarms went off, so they managed to avoid the bulk of the panicking crowd. Within a few minutes, they were able to make it back without losing anyone along the way. And luckily, Monoma returned without any issues. After a quick headcount by Kendou and Tokage, they were only short one person.

"Damn, we're still missing Moptop." Tokage clicked her teeth.

"Does anyone happen to have Midoriya-san's number?" Kendou looked around, earning a few head shakes. As if on cue, the door opened up and the students turned their heads to see none other than their missing classmate. The boy was slightly panting which meant that he must've ran back.

"Midoriya-san!"

"Where the hell were you at?" Tokage asked him.

"I-I apologize." The boy said with a quick bow. "I didn't really know where to go so I thought coming back here was the smartest choice."

"Do you know what's going on?" Honenuki inquired.

"Some reporters got passed the front gate."

"That's it…." Tetsutetsu deadpanned, along with a few other students. Although they were glad that it was anything too serious, a few of them were more than a bit miffed that they had to cut their lunch short for something so minor.

* * *

About thirty minutes after making it back to class, Kan finally showed up to see if his students were okay.

"I'd like to commend you all for your quick thinking and making it back here safely. It was a madhouse down there, especially in the cafeteria. But you all managed to keep your cool and avoid any incidents." The white haired man smiled towards his students. "But because of this unforeseen interruption, the principal informed me that we're going to adjust our schedule today. We were going to introduce you to rescue training this afternoon along with 1-A. But we'll have to save that for another day."

"So what are we going to be doing instead, sir?" Kendou raised her hand.

"A couple of things, really?" The man held up two fingers. "First things first, you all need to pick a class rep and vice-rep. Second, were gonna head down to the P.E. Grounds and all of you will do some impromptu quirk training along with myself and Midnight."

Nearly everyone's ears perked up after hearing that.

"You all can spend the next thirty minutes deciding on who the class reps will be. I need to go prepare for training." Kan told them before exiting the room.

The moment the door closed behind him, the class practically erupted with students stating their case as to why they should be class reps. Although there were a few more boisterous students like Monoma and Tetsutetsu, a few others decided to just keep their mouths shut. Namely Midoriya, Kodai, Yanagi and Bondo.

Tokage herself didn't feel strongly about it one way or the other. Even though being the class rep would look good to hero agencies in the future, it seemed like more trouble than what it was worth.

"Let's just put it to a vote." Honenuki suggested

"I agree." Shishida followed up.

"I mean...that's a good idea, but wouldn't everyone just vote for themselves?" Shoda said curiously.

"It just means that whoever does get picked is the right choice. Plus, "heroic integrity" and all that." Tokage shot back, hoping to get this over with as soon as possible.

With a few agreeing nods, the students of 1-B all pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote down the name of who they thought the honor should go to. After about five minutes, the votes were passed up to the front of the class and tallied up for everyone to see.

Votes:

Kendou - 6

Tokage - 4

Monoma - 2

Honenuki - 2

Shishida - 1

Kamakiri - 1

Awase - 1

Kaibara - 1

Fukidashi - 1

Kuroiro - 1

"Wow...I really don't know what to say." Kendou lightly chuckled while rubbing the back of her head.

"Seriously." Tokage agreed after recounting the votes just to make sure that her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. The green haired girl didn't even vote for herself, so the fact that she got four votes was definitely a surprise. It was safe to assume that Tetsutetsu was one of them, but the other three were a complete mystery to her.

"Well, you two did take charge and made sure that everyone got back to class safely."

"Honenuki-san's right." Shishida stated. "If it was not for the two of you, we might've gotten caught up in the debacle with the rest of the students."

"Yeah, Kendou. You kind of reminded me of my older sister with how you were barking out orders." Awase joked.

After a brief congratulations to the new class-rep and vice-rep, Kan returned and instructed the students to get changed into their gym uniforms and head down to the P.E. Grounds.

* * *

Once everyone made their way down to the field, the students wasted no time in getting right into their training. The majority of everyone was spread out across the area participating in various activities. Kan and Kayama were supervising their efforts and making sure that everyone was staying safe. But that didn't stop the R-Rated heroine from taking the time to chat with her favorite student.

"How are you doing over here, Setsuna?" The black haired woman asked.

"Aunt Nemur-er, Midnight-sensei!" The girl corrected herself. "I'm fine, I just needed to take a quick break is all." She said after reattaching her left arm back to her body. Her stamina was still her biggest issue when it came to her quirk.

"Good to hear." Kayama smiled. "How have things been going for you so far? I know we haven't had a chance to really chat since the school year started. Have the others been treating you well?"

"Yeah, everyone's been pretty chill except for a few people." Tokage said while pointing over to certain blonde haired kid. "And Tetsutetsu's here so it isn't too bad."

"Glad to hear it."

All of a sudden, the pro heroine leaned in a bit further and adopted a devious grin on her face. "So...I noticed you stealing glances at that Midoriya boy during my class the other day. Has my sweet little niece already picked out her boytoy for the year? Oh my, I can't wait to tell your father about this~!"

Tokage couldn't help but smirk at the woman's attempt to get her flustered. That kind of teasing may have worked on her when she was little, but it had been a long time since she let something like that get to her. "I mean, he's definitely cute. And from what I've seen he cuts quite the figure. But he isn't very social."

"Yes, I've noticed." Kayama backed off a bit. "If I remember, he was the boy that Vlad had to fight Shouta on getting in his class."

"Who?"

"Eraserhead, the homeroom teacher for 1-A. From what I heard, Shouta was going to put him in his class. But Vlad made a fuss about him trying to take the top three applicants for himself. He put on quite the display during the exam."

"Seriously?" Tokage turned her head over to steal a glance at Midoriya. The boy was currently by himself at the far end of the field while floating a few softballs in the air.

"Yes, he probably would've placed first if he didn't use up so much of his time helping out other applicants."

"Wow."

"Wow, indeed. Anyways, I'll let you get back to it."

"See you in a bit." Tokage gave a quick wave to the woman before turning her attention back to Midoriya.

'_I should try to talk to him after class is over.'_

* * *

While Tokage and Kayama were wrapping up with their conversation, Midoriya was hard at work trying to find a way around his own shortcomings. For the last thirty minutes he had been doing his best to manipulate multiple objects at once. But he ended up hitting a wall. Although the boy could lift a pretty decent amount of weight, his biggest problem came with trying to apply his quirk to more than one thing at a time. Recently he had been able to increase this limit to six objects that were within his weight range, but that was it.

"Midoriya-san." A voice whispered from just behind him, causing the '_telekinesis'_ user to jump. He turned around and was met with the stoic gaze of Reiko Yanagi. He hadn't talked to the gray haired girl much since class started. If he was being honest, her almost lifeless gaze unnerved him quite a bit.

"Y-Yanagi-san?" The boy said after recomposing himself.

"Kan-sensei said that the two of us should train together since we have similar quirks."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense."

"Yes." The girl nodded. "What are you working on now?"

"O-oh u-uh, well...I'm working on the amount of objects that I can control at once." The boy pointed over to the pile of softballs in front of him. "You can join me if you like."

"That's fine." Yanagi agreed before turning her focus to the pile of balls. Midoriya watched as the girl extended her arms out and used her quirk to lift twelve of the softballs into the air almost effortlessly.

'_She can manipulate that many at once?!'_ The boy gawked at the display before turning to her.

"Yanagi-san, you're amazing! I can barely control six of them and here you are manipulating twice that amount. Your quirk is awesome!" He practically cheered, which threw the girl off. So far in class she had never seen him speak with this much emotion before.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"But you're so much more powerful than me. I would think that you'd be able to manipulate more objects than I could based on how much weight you said that you can lift."

Midoriya took a second to rub the back of his head in embarrassment. "Y-yeah well, it's one of those things that I'm just not very good at. At least not yet."

"And you can fly as well."

"I wouldn't really call it flying. It's pretty much just me using my quirk on my body. Honestly, it's pretty hard to control and makes me lightheaded if I do it for too long."

"Hmm." The gray haired teen's face shifted into pensive expression. Actually, her face barely moved at all except for a slight furrow of the eyebrow.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not able to use my quirk on myself but you are. I guess our abilities are just different by nature."

"I guess so."

"Indeed. We should probably stop goofing off before one of the teacher's notice." The girl suggest before turning her attention back to the balls that were still floating in the air.

During their entire conversation, Midoirya hadn't even realized that she was still controlling the softballs. He doubted that he could do something like that. Splitting his focus to that level was beyond his current ability. It became evident to the green haired boy that Reiko Yanagi was someone that he could learn a lot from.

Things went on rather normally for the next twenty minutes or so. That is until a shirtless man with what looked like a yellow excavator claw on his head came sprinting down to the P.E. Grounds. "Kan, Kayama!"

"Maijima? What's up?" The R-Rated heroine asked her coworker.

"Why haven't you two been answering your damn phones?!"

"Mine is charging back in the classroom." Kan stated.

"Mine is in the teacher's lounge." Kayama followed.

"What the he- never mind. Come with me, right now!" The support course teacher demanded while waving them on.

"What's go-"

"I'll explain on the way, just get your asses in gear!"

Both teachers shared a quick glance before complying and taking their leave. Naturally everyone was confused, but based on the sense of urgency in Maijima's voice, it had to have been a serious matter.

"Kendou, keep everyone here until I get back."

"Y-yes, sensei." The new class representative nodded.

In the blink of an eye, all three faculty members had vanished behind one of the nearby buildings. A slew of murmurs and whispers began amongst the students before Kendou got everyone to calm down and get back to their training. Something about that entire exchange definitely seemed fishy. But whatever it was, the teachers probably had it handled.

Presented with an opportunity to goof off for a bit and get some rest, Tokage made her approach over to Midoriya. They hadn't really had a chance to talk so far today, and now was as good a time as ever.

"So Moptop, where were you during lunch?" The green haired girl inquired with a curious grin.

"I'm sorry?"

"Pretty much the entire class was eating lunch together except for you. In fact, the last time I even saw you in the cafeteria was during the first day of class. So what, do you have some secret hiding spot or something?"

"N-no i-it's nothing like that." He told her. "I'm…just not really good with crowds."

"Oh, that's understandable." She nodded. "Still, where do you go? You don't have to tell me, I'm just curious."

"Oh, well…I-"

Midoriya's response was cut off when Tetsutetsu decided to join their group. "So, where do you think Kan-sensei and Kayama-sensei ran off to?"

"Who knows? But that other guy sounded like it was urgent."

"Who was that anyway?" Yanagi inquired.

"That was Powerloader." Midoriya answered the grey haired girl without a second thought, earning a few confused looks from all of them. "H-he's an excavation hero. Most of his work is done underground and away from cities."

"Well that explains why we didn't recognize him."

"Yeah, he must be pretty low key. But if he's a teacher here then he's gotta be strong."

"I have a question as well." Yanagi said while looking to Tokage. "Is Midnight-sensei really your aunt?"

"We're not blood related, but her and my dad have been friends for a long time. So she's pretty much family." The girl smiled proudly.

"That's so cool!" Midoriya blurted out. The boy showing a level of emotion that neither of his classmates were used to seeing.

"Right!" Tokage smirked back. "Y'know Moptop, if you ever want an autograph all you have to do is come over to my place. We have our family dinners every Friday." The girl's comment making him blush.

This caused Tetsutetsu to start laughing. "You should be proud man, it took damn near a whole year for her to invite me over to her house."

"Well Moptop's a lot easier on the eyes than you, so he's the exception."

Midoriya's previous blush now intensified to a point where his head looked suspiciously like a ripened tomato. All Tokage could do was laugh at how simple it was to get the boy to lose his nerve. It was easy to see that he was going to be her new favorite target.

"That does bring up a good point though." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user continued after wiping her tears. "We should all hang out sometime."

"Hey yeah, that's a good idea!" Tetsutetsu quickly agreed. "How about his weekend? We can invite Kendou too."

"Sounds good to me. What about you two?" The girl looked to the telekinetic users.

"I have plans this weekend. But I appreciate the offer." Yanagi told them. Tokage's eyes shifted over to Midoriya who for some reason had an uncomfortable look on his face.

"S-sorry, I don't think I can. But t-thank you for the invite." The green haired boy said in an apologetic tone.

"Eh, no harm done. Maybe some other time."

With the conversation pretty much over, the students returned to their training and continued with that for the rest of the afternoon. Kan ended up making it back to the classroom in time to dismiss everyone for the day. But everyone couldn't help but notice that he had a few dirt patches on his costume that weren't there prior to his departure. Whatever caused him and Kayama to suddenly skip out on class must've been pretty important.

* * *

"So how was school today?" Inko asked her son while the two of them were in the middle of their family dinner.

"It was good. I got to see more of my classmate's quirks in action."

"Well I'm glad to hear it." She smiled. "So...have you made any new friends yet?"

Midoriya paused mid-bite before swallowing. "No."

That one word response was enough to make the woman frown at her only son. She knew it was a sore topic for him, but a part of her still had hope that he would become more social. "Y'know Izuku, things aren't like that old school of yours. From what you've told me, your classmates seem pretty nice. You should try and mingle with them a bit more."

"The only reason they're even nice to me is because I have a quirk." Was his short reply. There was a notable bit of edge to his voice that the woman wasn't really used to hearing from him.

"Izuku, I thin-"

"_Breaking News!"_ The television reporter suddenly announced, drawing both of the greenette's attention. "_This afternoon, U.A. High School was subject to a large scale villain attack that occurred on campus during a routine training session turned disaster. There has been no word yet from the police or the school on whether or not there were any casualties. But the one thing we do now is that All Might arrived in time before the situation could get any worse."_

'_What the hell?'_


	5. An Unwanted Encounter

***WARNING***

**This is your official "trigger warning" for this chapter. If you are not into certain dark themes, or depictions of violence, do not read the last section of this chapter. You have been warned.**

* * *

Following the attack on the school, the students of U.A. were given Friday off. Although the unexpected three day weekend wasn't exactly unwelcome, the circumstance could've been more agreeable. News of the infiltration of the USJ spread like wildfire once the story officially broke. Not many details were given concerning what exactly went down at the training site, but what little information was divulged wasn't good. It was reported that there were five casualties in total, three students and two teachers. Even though it was revealed that none of their injuries were life threatening, it was still a cause for alarm.

"Man, it's hard to believe that we almost got caught up in that mess." Kaibara said to Kuroiro and Tsuburaba.

"Yeah...they're saying that the break in earlier that day was connected to it." The '_solid air'_ user agreed.

"I'm just glad that everyone made it back alive. I wonder who the injured students were, though." Shoda interjected.

"Who knows? I don't even think I know anyone in 1-A."

"Alright everyone, class is about to start. Take your seats!" Kendou announced after walking into the classroom.

It didn't take long for Kan to arrive after the homeroom bell rang. Everyone was glad to see that their teacher was doing well. More than a few of them were concerned after hearing that over a hundred villains were a part of the attack. They were still in the dark about pretty much everything that went down so no one had any idea if Kan had to fight anyone or not. Even Kayama was tightlipped about the entire thing when she went to the Tokage house that Saturday.

"Alright students, I hope you all enjoyed your extended weekend." The man announced. "I know you all must have a ton of questions about what happened last week. But rest assured, the situation has been handled and there is nothing to worry about."

"That's a relief." Said Tsuburaba while leaning back in his chair.

"That being said, now's not the time for you all to be worried about those types of things. After all, the annual Sports Festival is coming up."

"Alright! Let's go kick some ass!" Tetsutetsu suddenly cheered.

Shiozaki was the first to voice her concern after hearing this. "Sensei, is it truly a good idea to hold the Sports Festival after the attack on our school?"

"Yeah, the villains could just attack us once we're all gathered in one spot." Awase piggybacked.

Kan sympathized with their concerns. In fact, these were the very same complaints that him, Aizawa and Snipe brought up during their emergency faculty meeting that weekend. "Security is going to be beefed up for this year. And the school board believes this is a good way to show that the threat has been handled."

'_That makes sense. But it's still pretty risky.'_ Midoriya thought to himself while he absorbed this information.

The Sports Festival was practically a national holiday in Japan. The green haired boy watched it almost every single year. The entire event was a way for students, mainly those in the hero course, to put their names out there and get some early exposure for any potential heroes that might want to take them on. He'd be lying if he said that he wasn't the least bit nervous about competing in such an illustrious event.

Tokage was pretty much in the same boat, except her anxiety was substituted with excitement. The green haired girl was more than determined to do well in the upcoming event. The prospect of getting scouted by a few good agencies was important. If she did well, her chances of becoming a pro were that much better.

"However…" Kan continued. "It's still two weeks away. Until then, you all are going to spend most of your time training and getting ready. The Sports Festival may follow the same format every year, but the actual events will still be a secret. So you need to be prepared for anything. That is why this afternoon I was able to reserve Training Ground Beta for you guys to use."

A few cheers erupted amongst the students. Needless to say, everyone was now feeling pretty motivated.

That motivation soon deflated when Present Mic came into the room to get started on his English lesson for the day. Everyone minus Tsunotori, Midoriya, Tokage, Honenuki and Monoma groaned at what was possibly their least favorite class of the entire curriculum.

* * *

After lunch, class 1-B found themselves standing outside of Ground Beta once again in their gym uniforms. Before being released, Kan and Cementoss told them that they pretty much had free reign to do whatever they felt like as long no one got injured. Which the students found no problem with at all.

Without a second thought, the entire class began making their way inside in hopes of finding a good spot to practice. A few people chose to group up together while the students with more destructive quirks chose to train on their own.

Midoriya himself was heading over to one of the nearby clearings to get some more practice in with his flying. As far as he was concerned, it was the one aspect of his quirk that was going to play a major advantage in the Sports Festival. He still planned to spend a good portion of his time working on his control and his weight limit, but his mobility in the air was a skill he knew that not a lot of people had.

Throughout his many hours of research and note taking, Midoriya had learned that there were actually very few people who possessed quirks that allowed them to move through the air. Or at least, very few who didn't have a set of wings on their back. As much as the boy would hate to admit it, he spent a good amount of time researching videos of the American hero, Captain Celebrity. The guy was a notorious sleeze who only recently got his act together. But there was no denying his skill when it came to his technique. The only other two that he was able to find were the "Psychic Sisters".

"So Moptop, what do you plan on doing?" The voice of Tokage brought him out of his thoughts. After letting out a surprised "yelp" sound, Midoriya turned his head to see that the girl in question walking right next to him.

"T-Tokage-san!"

"That's my name, don't wear it out!" She shot back with a grin. "So, what's on the agenda for the day partner?"

"P-p-partner?"

"Yeah, I thought about working alone but that just seemed to dull. Plus, Tetsutetsu and Itsuka want to focus on hand-to-hand stuff right now."

"Oh…"

"So…" She leaned in a bit closer, getting the reaction that she wanted. "What were you planning on doing?"

"Just work on my flying is all."

"That's cool." She nodded. In fact, this was perfect. This was probably going to be her best chance to get some time alone with him and ask a few more questions that she still had. "Are you okay with me tagging along?"

The green haired boy paused for a moment before coming up with a response. In truth, he was hoping to use this training as an excuse for some alone time. It wasn't an issue of whether or not he liked his classmates. But after so many years of being secluded from practically everyone else, the idea of doing anything with anyone else just felt...uncomfortable. And if it wasn't for the fact that he had his quirk, he doubted that any of them would even give him the time of day.

Against his better judgment, the boy silently nodded and agreed. He may have told her that she could join him, but it wasn't like he couldn't just fly away and find a different spot all to himself.

"Cool, so are you as hyped for the Sports Festival as everyone else?"

"I guess so."

"It's our first real chance to get looked at by some heroes and agencies. Is there anyone that you were hoping to impress?"

"Not really." He answered honestly. There weren't any heroes in particular that he had a burning desire to make himself known to. He was just grateful for the opportunity. " W-what about you?"

"Eh, no one in particular." The girl shrugged.

The two continued their journey to the clearing for another couple of minutes in very awkward silence. It was obvious that the boy wasn't the greatest conversationalist, but it wouldn't kill him to strike up a chat for once. Yet again, a detail about him that she thought was a bit odd.

"What made you want to be a hero, if you don't mind me asking?" Tokage's question practically came out of nowhere.

Midoriya paused mid-step and looked at the ground for a second before answering. "I guess I've always just wanted to help people." He rubbed the back of his head. There was a bit more to it than that, but he chose to stick with the short answer.

"Same." She smiled back. "I plan on becoming a rescue hero once I finally graduate."

"Really?" He looked to her with a bit of surprise. He honestly wasn't expecting the girl to want to be a rescue hero. Her quirk would be better suited for espionage and recon in his opinion. But with how versatile it was, he didn't doubt that the girl would excel at it.

Apparently it was something that they had in common. Becoming a rescue hero was his plan as well. Fighting villains in the street may have been what brought most top heroes their popularity. But in his opinion, heroes who focused more on saving lives rather than overly dramatic battles were the ones to look up to.

"Yeah. I think my quirk would be useful for rescue and recovery type jobs."

In no time, the two finally made it to the open clearing in the western part of the training ground. They spent the next few minutes silently stretching out before they were ready to get started. Midoriya then activated his quirk and began levitating in the air. Ascending higher and higher with each passing second. Once he felt that he was at a reasonable height, the '_telekinesis'_ user began doing laps around the clearing.

So far, the maximum time limit that he could maintain this area of his quirk was about twelve minutes before the headaches and nosebleeds started setting in. He hoped to be able to increase that in the next two weeks, but realistically he probably wouldn't make that much of an improvement.

Without so much as a second thought, Midoriya decided to turn things up a bit and took off towards the eastern part of the training grounds.

On the ground, Tokage was watching with sheer amazement at the boy's skill. It was only a few seconds after he took off did she realize that he pretty much abandoned her in the clearing. Never one to shy away from a challenge, the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user decided to go after him. There was no way she about to let him out of her sights that easily.

Tokage broke herself up into ten pieces and then took off like a rocket. As far as her quirk was concerned, the most she could split herself up into was twenty-five separate pieces. Any more than that and she would pass out from exhaustion.

It didn't take long for the girl to catch up to her classmate, especially since he stopped mid-air about eight hundred meters from where they were just standing. He was lightly panting which meant he must've overdone it a bit.

"Man, and I thought I was fast." Tokage's floating head caught his attention. It still amazed him how the girl could essentially decapitate herself at will.

"S-sorry, I was trying to work on my speed." He apologized.

"Y'know Moptop, with your quirk you probably could've gotten in through rec- Hey watch out!" The girl suddenly shouted.

Midoriya barely had enough time to turn his head before he felt the force of something collide with the right side of his face. The moment the object made contact, the boy could feel the control he had on his quirk vanish. And immediately, Midoriya went plummeting towards the ground.

When it came to his quirk, one of his biggest weaknesses besides exhaustion was direct blows to the head. It was the reason why he added a protective helmet into the design for his hero costume. Anytime he was struck in the head by an object, he would be unable to use his quirk for a few seconds.

"Midoriya!" Tokage shouted loud enough for everyone nearby to hear as she watched the boy fall. Without a moment's hesitation, she flung her arms at him in hopes of catching him before he hit the ground. By sheer luck she was able to make it in time just before the damage could be done. Grabbing him by the shoulder and the fabric of his shirt.

"Are you alright?!" She asked, obviously concerned for the wellbeing of her classmate.

"Y-yeah." He groaned while rubbing his head. It was only after he touched his face that he noticed the warm trail of blood next to his ear. "What happened?"

"I think it was-"

"Are you guys alright?!" The voice of Kendou shouted. The two teens turning their heads to see her, Tetsutetsu, and Shoda making a beeline straight for them.

"Moptop just got hit." Tokage answered.

"By what?!"

"I'm pretty sure it was-"

"_Oh my god, Midoriya are you okay?!" _The voice of Pony Tsunotori frantically shouted in her native tongue. The blonde haired teen was being followed by Kan and Cementoss. "_I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were up there before I fired off one of my horns!"_

"Tsunotori-san, calm down."

"It's fine." He told the worried teen after finally standing on his feet. Much to the relief of the others.

"This is my fault." Kan grimaced. "I was the one who told her to aim her quirk in the air. I should've double checked to see if the place was clear."

"It's no issue, sensei."

"Either way, I want you to get that wound checked out by Recovery Girl." He ordered before directing his gaze towards Tokage. "And I want you to go with him to make sure he gets there safely."

"Yes sir." The greenette nodded.

"As for the rest of you, go tell everyone to take a ten minute break to cool off. And I want all of you to move in closer so me and Cementoss can see everyone."

"Yes sensei." Kendou agreed before running off to the far end of the training ground were Shiozaki and Shishida said they would be.

Tokage wasted no time in escorting Midoriya to the nurse's office. But not before a series bi-lingual apologies and low bows from Tsunotori for almost causing one of her classmates to get seriously injured. Of course, Midoriya told the girl that there was nothing to worry about. But that didn't stop the tears from escaping her eyes.

Thankfully for the students of 1-B, that near-miss was the only incident to occur for the rest of the day.

* * *

With classes finally over with for the day, the hero course students were released to head home. Everyone was more than ready to get out of the school as soon as possible and get some much needed rest and relaxation. However, the crowd of students blocking the hallway was preventing the wannabe heroes from leaving the building.

"Yo Metalhead, what the heck is going on?" Tokage asked her friend as he tried to muscle his way through the middle of the crowd.

"A ton of people are scouting out the hero course students for the Sports Festival. I kinda wanted to see what all the hype for the 1-A guys was about so I joined in." The boy answered back while politely shoving another student out of the way.

"Really?" Kendou asked with a deadpan expression.

"Yeah, ever since the incident last week those guys have been getting all of the buzz. Everyone wants to know what's up with the class that fought off actual villains."

"You do realize how stupid you sound, right?" Tokage scowled at him. "Some of those guys got hurt and you want to harass them just to see if they're strong or not?"

Right before Tetsutetsu could respond, one of the 1-A students decided to give everyone a piece of their mind.

"...least now you know what a future pro looks like. So move it extras!" A boy with ash blonde hair and red eyes all but growled at the group of students closest to the door. Causing a few of them to back away in fear.

"You can't go around calling people extras just because you don't know who they are!" Another boy with glasses waved his arms in a way that couldn't be natural for a human being.

"What a snob. Just because he fought some druggies and low-level thugs he thinks he's hot stuff." Monoma scoffed as they watched the blonde boy push through the crowd. '_Although, I feel like I've seen that guy somewhere before.'_

"Yeah, you got that right." Kendou agreed with a quick chuckle.

About halfway through the mob, the brutish blonde haired boy stopped in his tracks. Something seemed to catch his attention. And judging by the way his face shifted from annoyance to confusion to anger, it was something big. "Deku!"

Everyone in the hallway turned around towards the direction that the boy shouted to where none other than Midoriya was standing. The green haired teen suddenly adopting a "deer in headlights" expression.

"Is he talking to Midoriya-san?"

'_Did he just call him "Deku"?'_ Tokage wondered. It was blatantly obvious that the guy wasn't the nicest person in the world. But to go around throwing insults like that was not okay.

The blonde haired boy proceed to push through the remaining crowd and stomp right over to where their classmate was standing. The angry teen wasting no time in getting right into his face. "What do you think you're doing here you quirkless loser?!"

To say that everyone was thrown off by that would be an understatement. Why the hell did he just call Midoriya quirkless?

"Hey, I don't know what your deal is. But you might have the wrong guy." Tetsutetsu spoke up.

"Shut the fuck up, weird eyebrows. This is between me and this useless shit!" The boy barked back.

"What the hell's your problem you psycho?!"

The guy ignored the silver haired teen and turned his gaze back to Midoriya. "I asked you a question you freak. What the hell are you doing here?!"

The air grew stiff as the crowd waited for the boy's response. From where she was standing, Tokage noticed that Midoriya's face seemed to twist into a scowl before mellowing out a brief second after. "Hello _Bakugou_...it's been a while." The boy's tone was cold and almost apathetic.

Something about what he said seemed to make the guy now identified as Bakugou pause.

"Midoriya, do you know this jerk?" Tetsutetsu asked.

"I-I guess you could say that." He told him.

"I asked you a question you quirkless fuck-"

"Hey cool your jets, guy!" Tokage blurted out.

"Yeah, and can you stop harassing our classmate? First of all, Midoriya-san _isn't_ quirkless. In fact, he's far from it." Now it was Kendou's turn to speak up.

"And even if he was, what's wrong with that? The way you say it, it almost sounds like not having a quirk is a disease or something." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user followed up.

Tokage noticed the brief look that Midoriya gave her before turning his attention back to Bakugou. His gaze was now even darker than it was a second ago.

"Who cares what a bunch of losers like you think? All I want to know is what the fuck do _you_ think you're doing at this school?!" Bakugou emphasized by poking Midoriya in the chest a few times.

"Why do you care?" Midoriya answered back. Obviously there was a history between these two. And judging by how the both of them were acting, it wasn't anywhere near pleasant. Just before the angry blonde could respond, the voice of Midnight grabbed everyone's attention.

"Unless you lot want to spend the next week in detention, I suggest you start making your way out of the building!" The R-rated hero threatened while cracking her whip.

'_I seriously need to get me one of those.'_ Tokage thought.

Deciding to not wait for an invitation, the crowd quickly dispersed as everyone began rushing out of the building. Leaving only a few remaining students in the hallway.

"This isn't over, Deku." Bakugou growled before shoving his shoulder and walking away.

Tokage and the others were quick to go to boy's side. Obviously she was concerned about him. But her curiosity was just as great. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah...I'm fine." He waved off with a smile. However, Tokage noticed something. She wasn't an expert on people by any means. But she knew when someone was faking it. And Midoriya was very obviously doing that.

"Just what the heck was that guy's problem?" Kendou asked.

"He certainly seems like the "unhinged" type doesn't he?" Monoma stated.

"It's no big deal, re-"

"Hey, I recognize that head of green hair!" A female voice suddenly interjected. The group of five looked over to see a girl with brown hair in a bob cut not unlike that of their classmate, Komori. "It's you, the flying boy!"

"Geez Moptop, how many friends do you have in this class?" Tokage arched an eyebrow at him.

"She's not-"

"Hey, Tsu-chan! This is the guy I was telling you about. The one who saved my butt during the entrance exam." The girl motioned to the inside of the classroom.

It took a second, but Midoriya finally remembered why the girl looked so familiar. She was the same person that got trapped under some rubble after the massive zero pointer showed up. He managed to get the rocks off of her and float her to safety just before the thing could crush her. After that, Recovery Girl ended up treating her injury and he never saw her again.

Before anyone else could say anything, another girl walked out. This one was a bit shorter than the previous one, though. She had dark green hair, wide eyes, and a weird posture similar to that of Yanagi. But her most notable feature was the massive scar running all the way down from her forehead to the left side of her jaw. And a few smaller ones on the right side of her face.

'_She must be one of the students who got hurt during the attack.'_ Tokage wondered.

"That's pretty neat, gero." The girl now identified as Tsu responded with a frog like croak.

The brunette girl then quickly approached the group of 1-B students before giving a low bow to Midoriya. "Thank you again for helping me back there. I never really got a chance to properly thank you. If it wasn't for you, I probably would've gotten crushed."

"I-i-it's no big deal, really." A now embarrassed Midoriya waved off. "It's nice to s-see that you passed."

The girl's blush intensified as she rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah...I barely managed to make it in. But seriously, you were a major help Deku-san."

Midoriya's expression immediately darkened after hearing the girl's words. If the brunette was being honest, the gaze that he gave her was a bit unnerving. "What did you just call me?"

"Deku-san...that's what Bakugou-san called you, right? Sorry about him. He's not the nice-" She tilted her head in confusion.

"Look…."

"Uraraka."

"Look Uraraka-san, I don't know you all that well. But my name is Midoriya..._not_ Deku. Can do me a favor and never call me that again, please?"

"S-sorry."

If it wasn't obvious that the tone of the entire conversation had just shifted, Midoriya's abrupt exit made it very clear. As he walked passed her, Tokage managed to see the uncomfortable look on his face. Something was up with the guy and there was no doubt that less than desirable nickname had something to do with it.

"Did I do something to offend him?" Uraraka looked back to Kendou, Tokage, Tetsutetsu and Monoma.

"You do know what that name means, right?" Kendou scowled at her.

"No…"

"It means someone who's useless or can't do anything. It's not exactly a friendly greeting." Tokage answered.

"Oh…" The brunette looked down in shame.

"Hmm…" Monoma rubbed his chin in thought. "Now that you mention it, if you read Midoriya-san's name a certain way it does spell out "Deku."."

"I-I didn't know."

"Eh, no harm no foul." Tokage shrugged. "Anyways, we should all get going before Midnight-sensei gives us all detention. See you around, Class 1-A." The girl waved before taking her leave. The rest of her classmates quickly following suit.

On the way back home, Tokage couldn't help but feel a bit concerned about Midoriya. Something was weird about that entire interaction between him and Bakugou. And it wasn't just the fact that the ashen blonde decided to just flat out attack her classmate in front of everyone. She was more interested in why he called Midoriya quirkless. It didn't make any sense. The broccoli headed teen very obviously had a quirk, and a damn powerful one at that.

Something was fishy about the whole thing and she would be lying if she said that she wasn't the least bit interested.

'_Maybe I'll get a chance to talk to him about it tomorrow?'_

* * *

A disaster. This was a complete and utter disaster.

Of course something like this was going to happen. Everything was going far too well for him not to have it all blow up in his face. He couldn't even make it two weeks into the school year without something like this happening.

He already knew that Bakugou had gotten into U.A.. He would've been an idiot to think otherwise. But a little part of him hoped that maybe, just maybe he wouldn't have to see his face again. Or even just for a little while longer. And the fact that they hadn't seen each other in almost a year wasn't helping his case in the slightest.

The worst case scenario had actually happened. Bakugou had dimed him out in front of everyone. People were going to start asking questions. Surely his classmates were going to want to know why the boy had called him quirkless. It was only a matter of time before the rumors started and people went digging.

A wave of emotions flooded Midoriya's mind. So bad that he barely noticed that he was already standing in front of his door. How he got home so fast was a mystery to him. For all he knows, he might've actually flown all the way back.

"M-Mom!" The boy called out across the apartment, only to be met with silence.

"Are you home?!" He yelled again. Confirming what he wished to be true. The last thing he needed was having her around right now. He was met with silence yet again and relished in the fact that she was probably working late tonight.

In the blink of an eye, the boy vanished into his room and slammed the door shut behind him. He paused for a moment as he looked around his domicile. Walls that were once filled to the brim will All Might memorabilia were now barren. Nowadays, the only decorations that he had were his blackout curtains, his simple green and black comforter, a pull-up bar and his old hero notebooks still sitting on his desk.

After locking his door, the young teen made a beeline straight for his closet and reached his hand into the secret compartment that he had managed to keep hidden from his mother. His fingers fiddled around for a while before latching onto their intended target. A small black box that contained the only relief that he could provide himself. With no hesitation, he opened the package and drifted his hand over its contents before pulling out a single steel razor blade from inside.

Barely a second later, Midoriya's jacket and shirt were already off of his body. Revealing a veritable train track of scars that spanned the midpoint of his abdomen all the way down to his hip that he had accumulated over the last few months. Checking over the site once more to confirm the spot.

He couldn't wait any longer. He needed the relief right now.

It may have been a few weeks since he last felt the need to do this. But the act itself was pretty much "muscle memory" at this point. With a practiced ease, he pressed the blade over his right oblique and let it dance over his skin. But the first pass wasn't enough, though. So he did it again, and again, and again. And again, until finally he reached that euphoric feeling that he was looking for. The sensation that finally allowed him to calm his mind and let rationality embrace him once again.

Once his mind became clear, he placed the box back into its hidden compartment. And plunged the used blade deep into the trashcan so that his mother couldn't find it if she ever wandered her way into his room while he was gone.

With the ritual complete, the boy made his way into his bathroom to clean himself off. Rinsing the fresh stream of blood off of his abdomen and placing a thin bandage over top of it, along with a black tank-top to further hide any evidence.

"_This is the last time I'll let something like that get to me.'_ Midoriya told himself before grabbing his hero art history textbook and getting started on his homework.

* * *

**Author's Notes: Wow...didn't take long for that "M" rating, now did it?**

**1\. Let me be clear, this is NOT another Midoirya tries to commit suicide fic. Yes, he is a cutter in this story as well. But this time around, I'm going to work a different angle for that part of his character than I did in "M-K Ultra". I feel like I didn't execute that sub-plot the way I wanted to, so I'm going to "make-up" for it. This still a Hurt/Comfort/Angst story after all.**


	6. Sports Festival: Part 1

In the days following that minor altercation in the hallway, Midoriya seemed slightly more distant than he was before. The green haired boy was never a social butterfly to begin with. But over the last couple of weeks he had been noticeably more quiet. He still talked to everyone and engaged in conversation, but you couldn't help but notice the cloud hanging over his head.

No one in class approached him about the whole Bakugou situation, seeing as the only people who knew about it were the ones that witnessed it. But it was obvious that whatever was bothering him was related to it.

Tokage decided to just give the boy his space and not pester him about it. As one of the class reps it was her job to make sure that her fellow students were okay. But as a decent person she knew when and when not to broach certain boundaries. However, that certainly didn't stop the girl from shooting him a text the Sunday before the big day.

* * *

_~Dagobah Beach~_

This once great tourist destination turned dumping ground was probably Midoriya's favorite place in the world. Which sounded just as weird to him as it would to anyone else. He discovered the place not too long ago, and for the past seven months it had served as his secret training ground. With all of the loose debris and materials lying around, it was the perfect location to practice using his quirk. What started out as simple movement drills and experiments quickly turned into somewhat of a community service project for the boy. He'd even say that it was a hobby at this point.

Sure there were many other reasons why he had dedicated so much time towards coming here. Such as the seclusion and cover that was needed to avoid getting arrested for public quirk use. Or the wide array of objects that helped him manipulate things of different weight limits and sizes.

What were once gigantic mounds of garbage were now neatly organized pillars and blocks placed strategically across the sand. At some point in the last few months, he had turned the place into somewhat of an obstacle course for him to practice his maneuverability in the air.

Unfortunately for Midoriya, had no way of moving the trash to an actual dump or recycling center. The most he could do right now was organize things into neat piles and hope that he would be able to do something about the mess once he could legally use his quirk in public. However, nothing put a smile on his face quite like seeing the beach slowly revert back to its former glory.

The green haired boy was in the middle of moving a few old refrigerators and crates into a pyramid shaped block when his phone went off on the ground below him. He gave the device a curious look before extending his arm out and levitating it into his hand. Swiping his thumb over the lockscreen to reveal one new text message.

* * *

T-Rex: Hey, it's Setsuna.

T-Rex: If you're wondering how I got your number it's because Kan-sensei gave me and Itsuka a list of everyone's in class. I'm not a stalker.

Rabbit: Hello, Tokage-san.

Rabbit: Is there something I can help you with?

T-Rex: Yes, and it's a very important matter.

Rabbit: What is it?

T-Rex: Where are you taking me for my victory date after I win the Sports Festival?

If it wasn't for the sand, Midoriya would've certainly shattered his phone.

T-Rex: I can only imagine the look on your face right now. :-D

Rabbit: That's a funny joke.

T-Rex: Who said I was joking?

Rabbit: Oh….

T-Rex: Kidding… ;-D

T-Rex: Or am I?

Rabbit: So...is there something that you wanted?

T-Rex: Come on man! You gotta learn how to get with the program. Metalhead was way quicker on the uptake. We'll just have to work on your "witty banter" skills another time.

Rabbit: Oh.

T-Rex: In all seriousness though, are you okay?

Rabbit: I'm great.

T-Rex: We both know that's not the case. You've been quieter than usual in class.

Rabbit: I promise, Tokage-san. I am fine.

T-Rex: Well then, if you're so fine then you'll have no problem hanging out with me this weekend!

Rabbit: What?

T-Rex: We're hanging out this weekend. Honestly...you don't really have a choice in the matter.

Rabbit: Why would you want to hang out with me?

T-Rex: Because I'm going to be home alone this weekend and I'd much rather spend my time with a cute guy rather than laying on my couch and watching old era cartoons.

Rabbit: But why me?

T-Rex: Why not?

Rabbit: I don't know how to respond to that.

T-Rex: You should be glad that a beautiful young maiden is offering you such a blessing. Most boys would've jumped at the offer.

T-Rex: Plus I really don't have anything to do and Tetsutetsu is going to be out of town.

Rabbit: I'll think about it.

T-Rex: I'll take that as a "yes".

T-Rex: Anyways...sorry for bothering you. I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing. Try to not to dream about me too much.

Rabbit: Goodbye, Tokage-san.

* * *

Before the students knew it, the day of the Sports Festival had finally arrived.

Tokage herself was feeling pretty good about her chances. She wouldn't go as far as to say that she was going outright win the entire thing just yet. But the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user definitely had a fire lit in her soul about getting the chance to prove herself.

While the students of 1-B nervously sat in their assigned waiting room, you could practically feel the tension in the air. Most everyone was quiet and doing whatever they could to psyche themselves up. Tetsutetsu was stretching in the nearby corner. Honenuki and Shoda were playing the guessing game on what they were going to be doing and Tsunotori was mumbling something to herself in English that Tokage couldn't really understand. However, the entire atmosphere changed when Monoma decided to make his presence known by standing in the middle of the room and calling for everyone's attention.

"Listen guys, I think that we should play it safe the first few rounds of the competition." The '_copy'_ quirk user stated.

"What do you mean?" Kendou inquired.

"Think about it. Like Kan-sensei said, we already know that the first event is going to be an obstacle course around the stadium. We just don't know what exactly those obstacles are going to be. It would be better if we all stayed in a group and helped each other get to the next round."

"Monoma-kun does have a point." Honenuki stated.

"I'm not going to say that I disagree. But we don't even know how many of us they'll let get through to the next round. Last year they only let thirty people through, and we have ten other classes to worry about."

"Itsuka's right!" Tetsutetsu blurted out. "It's gonna have to be every man for himself. Plus this a competition, we should be trying to beat each other not help each other out."

"Calm down, idiot!" Tokage slapped the silver haired teen in the back of the head. "Look at it this way. If we play it smart now, then we can have an advantage over the other classes in the upcoming rounds. Honestly, we should be worried about scouting out the completion while we're at it."

"Would you care to elaborate, Tokage-san?" Shishida asked the green haired vice-rep.

"I say that we all hang back a bit and let the other students show off their quirks. No doubt the other hero course students are going to try and add on to their newfound fame. On top of that, people are going to be watching them a lot closer than us."

'_That's actually a good point. Knowing Bakugou, he'll come out guns blazing as soon as the race starts. If there are other students in his class like him, then they'll probably follow suit.'_ Midoriya thought to himself. He agreed with Tokage's reasoning, laying low and gathering information on the other competitors would be a wise decision.

"That's exactly right Tokage-san!" Monoma cheered. "We can get a leg up on the competition before the second round."

"All of this scheming seems so dishonest." Shiozaki spoke up. "I'm sorry, but I can't participate in such underhanded behavior."

"We'll I'm all for it." Awase added on.

"Why don't we just let Kendou-san decide? She _is_ the class rep after all. And if we are going to do this, it'll have to be a team effort." Honenuki stated.

Nineteen sets of eyes locked onto the orange haired teen as she took a moment to think things over. She didn't disagree with the whole idea, but it was way too risky without knowing how many people were going to get passed the first round.

"How about we hold off on making the decision until we know exactly what we're dealing with?" She suggested.

"Fine with me." A few of the other students echoed.

As if on cue, the voice of the announcer spoke to the students through the speaker in the top corner of the room. "**All students, please report to the parade field."**

* * *

Soon enough, the students were ushered out of the northernmost gate of the stadium and met with the sight of the cheering crowd. One by one, each of the eleven classes were introduced to the world. Naturally, everyone's attention was focused on the hero course students, especially those in 1-A. But Tokage and the others knew better than to underestimate any of the other students.

Within minutes the freshmen were crowded around the event stage, waiting for the festivities to begin. While the students and crowd listened to Midnight's introduction, the nervous tension that surrounded them seemed to magnify with each passing second.

Midoriya took a moment to look around the group, only to be met with a slurry of dissenting scowls from various onlookers. It didn't take long for him to notice that almost every student in his class was receiving similar looks. _'I guess the hero course students are the one's on everyone's radar._'

"Now to give the student pledge. Katsuki Bakugou, please come up to the stage!" The somewhat inappropriately dressed hero announced.

"Wait...what?!" Tetsutetsu accidentally blurted out.

"That guy's the student representative for this year?" Tokage asked no one in particular.

"I'm pretty sure he got the top spot on the entrance exam." Kendou told her.

As Bakugou made his way to the microphone, the blonde haired boy made an obvious effort to bump shoulders with Midoriya along the way. The green haired boy decided to just pay it no mind and play it off. A few seconds later, Bakugou was up on stage and took a slight breath before scowling at every last one of the students on the field.

"I just wanna say...I'm gonna win." The blonde haired boy said with a level of confidence and nonchalance that pretty much angered everyone both on the field and in the stands. He seemingly didn't care though as he responded to their shouting with a rude gesture and declaring that everyone was nothing more than, "Stepping stones on my path to the top." After another snide remark about beating everyone, he walked down the steps back onto the field. A look of determination on his face.

'_Well, I can't say that I wasn't expecting that to happen.'_ Midoriya thought to himself.

"Talk about a major asshole." Tokage said with a click of the teeth.

"Well, at least he's confident." Kendou sarcastically shrugged.

'_Wait, now I know where I recognize him from!'_ Monoma suddenly thought.

"Thank you Bakugou for those...inspirational words." Midnight said as she got the crowd's attention back onto her. Not like it would've been a difficult task in the first place. "Now without further ado, allow me to announce the first event. Our competitors will be competing in a four kilometer obstacle course back to the main entrance of the stadium. The rules are rather simple, just be one of the first forty-four students to make it across the finish line. Quirk usage is also allowed as long as you don't harm another student or leave the designated course."

With that declaration, nearly all of the 1-B students turned their gazes towards Kendou.

"Alright…we're going with Monoma-san and Setsuna's idea. We still have a bit of time before the race starts so let's hurry up and come up with a plan." The girl announced just loud enough for their group to hear.

Within a few minutes, the first year students made their way over to the starting line. Having already gone over their plan, Class 1-B decided to stay in one relatively large group. With their strategy in place, they were feeling more than confident that they would all make it into the next round.

The moment the horn sounded, the entire tunnel was met with a strong gust of cold wind and series of loud bangs. By sheer luck, the 1-B students were just far away enough to avoid having their feet frozen solid by a sheet of ice that magically appeared below them.

Midoriya looked ahead towards the edge of the tunnel to see Bakugou flying through the air by propelling himself with miniature explosions. And a kid with two-tone hair skating on the ice.

'_I guess the students in the other hero course have some pretty powerful quirks.'_

"Damn, that was a close one." Tokage said.

"Seriously." Kendou agreed before checking on her other classmates. Luckily, no one got caught up in that initial attack. "C'mon guys, we need to get a move on!"

Without a moment's hesitation, the hero course students began pushing their way through the crowd. When it became apparent that they weren't going to get through by sheer strength alone, Honenuki decided that he had enough of the nonsense and activated his quirk. Nearly all of the students ahead of them began sinking into the ground before lipless teen re-solidified the dirt.

"You're the man, Juzo!" Kaibara complimented his classmate.

With the first obstacle out of the way, the 1-B students quickly began pushing forward. Everyone managed to stay together in a group minus Shiozaki, who used her vines to navigate her way out of the tunnel ahead of everyone else. And Tetsutetsu, who just took off running to catch up to first place.

It didn't take them long reach the next leg of the race, which pretty much amounted to them having to fight their way their way through some of the robots from the entrance exam. A good part of the path was already frozen over and some of the bigger robots were immobilized. So all that was left were smaller ones.

"The one's with the better combat quirks clear a path. The rest of us will back you up!" Kendou commanded.

Almost immediately Kamakiri, Fukidashi, Shoda, Shishida and Tsunotori jumped into action and began knocking down anything that came their way. While the three of them were handling that, Midoriya decided to do his part and used his telekinesis to move a few of the robots away from himself, Kodai and Komori. The robots themselves were well within his weight limit, so it wasn't too much of a bother for him.

While that was going on, Tokage thought it would be a good idea to cover their backs. "Hey Bondo, can you lay down a glue trap once everyone in our class gets by? That will slow down anyone who hasn't made it this way yet."

"No problem." The gentle giant of the class said before covering the pathway in a rather thick layer of glue.

* * *

Back in one of the viewing booths, the members of the school's faculty were watching events unfold with rapt attention.

"As expected, most of the group that's gone ahead is from Class 1-A." Snipe said as he watched Bakugou and Shouto Todoroki barrel through the last of the zero point robots left on the course.

"Yes, it appears as though their experience at the USJ has kicked them into another gear."

"Indeed, Aizawa-kun's students are putting on quite the show. However, it appears as though Kan-kun's class chose an entirely different route of approach. Not only are they working together, but they are eliminating competition along the way." Nezu smiled.

"Let's see how they do on the next obstacle." Hound Dog stated before flipping the screen to a different camera.

* * *

In no time the students came upon their next trial. Which just so happened to be a giant canyon filled with pillars that were spaced out and connected by some relatively thin ropes. There was a fair bit of distance between the hero course students and the rest of the pack, but that still didn't leave them a lot of time to come up with a plan. Especially since a good amount of students were already making progress across the pit. Such as one girl with pink hair who was apparently allowed to use a jetpack.

"So...any ideas?" Awase looked around.

Suddenly, a light bulb went off over Tokage's head and the girl directed her gaze over towards a certain patch of green hair. "Moptop!"

"Y-yes?" He responded nervously after being called out.

"Flying over this thing should be a piece of cake for you, right?"

"Uh...yes." He nodded.

"Do you think that you can carry other people with you while you do that?"

"It s-shouldn't be a problem."

"That's perfect!" Kendou almost cheered after following along with the other girl's train of thought. "Everyone who has a high mobility quirk can just carry someone else over. And those who are being carried will watch their backs."

"Sounds good to me." Shoda stated.

"Midoriya-kun, Yanagi-chan, you guys have telekinetic quirks. So you're gonna have to do most of the heavy lifting."

"My weight limit is lower than Midoriya-kun's. The only people I can probably take with me are Komori-chan and Fukidashi-kun. Also, I can't use my quirk on myself to fly." The grey haired girl stoically replied.

"Did she just call us all fat?" Kaibara whispered to Kuroiro.

"We don't have a lot of time for discussion." Monoma announced while pointing over to an oncoming group of students who managed to get past Bondo's glue trap. "Midoriya-kun, how many people can you take with you?"

"Five at the most."

"Alright, here's the plan!" Tokage spoke up. "Moptop, you take Bondo, Kamakiri, Shoda, Kuroiro and Shishida. I'll carry Itsuka and Yanagi, while she uses her quirk to daisy-chain Komori and Fukidashi. Pony, use your horns to take Kodai with you. Sorry, but the rest of you-"

"We get it." Monoma interjected. "While you guys are transporting people and circling back around, me and Honenuki-kun will soften the ground and make it harder for people to get pass."

"We'll come back for you guys, I promise." Kendou reassured the five remaining boys. Those being Monoma, Honenuki, Kaibara, Tsuburaba and Awase.

"If you don't, I'll never forgive you!" Awase shouted.

"Does anyone have a problem with the plan?" The orange haired teen looked around for one final confirmation. With no protest, the students wasted no time in grouping up and setting off. Midoriya quickly lifted his five passengers off the ground and began moving towards to other side of the canyon. He wasn't too worried about dropping any of them. But he did have to strain a bit to keep his focus.

While he was doing that, Tokage split herself up into two parts. With her top half, she hooked her hands under Yanagi while the girl also used her quirk to float her two passengers. And Kendou grabbed a hold of her bottom half.

* * *

"That's some impressive coordination." Snipe grinned under his mask at how the 1-B students were playing this. Although the battle for first place was just as riveting, he couldn't help but acknowledge the other hero class.

"I'm actually surprised, most students are only concerned with getting the top spot and standing out." Thirteen added on.

"Yes, it appears as though 1-B went into this with a plan. If they keep this up, all of them with get through with no issue."

"You have a rather wonderful class, Kan-kun."

"W-well thank you, sir."

* * *

It barely took a couple of minutes for the first group to safely make it across the canyon. Once everyone was back on the ground, Midoriya and Tokage circled around to pick up the rest of their classmates.

"Thanks for the assist, Moptop. Y'know...if you wanted to you could've just went ahead of everyone else and fought for the top spot. You probably would've been in first place." Tokage grinned at him as the duo flew through the canyon.

"Y-yeah, you're right." He responded. "But everyone agreed to do this as a group. And it wouldn't have felt right if I didn't help out."

"Aww, you're such a sweetheart." The girl's comment making the boy blush.

Once they made it to the other end of the canyon, the two greenettes were surprised at what they came back to. Apparently, Monoma and Honenuki combined their efforts and made a giant pit of quicksand in between the remaining 1-B students and the rest of the crowd. Even Tsuburaba had a few people encased in bubbles of solidified air.

"That's not even fair." Tokage laughed at the sight below her.

The two were quick to scoop up the rest of their classmates and make the journey back to the other side of the canyon. Leaving the rest of the competitors yelling and angrily waving at them.

* * *

_~Saitama Prefecture~_

"Hey boss, I didn't know you had a little brother." A black haired woman with purple eyes said to another with green eyes and dark green hair.

"What are you talking about?"

"Have you not been watching the U.A. Sports Festival?"

"No, I just finished catching up on some paperwork so I haven't had the time to check it out." Was her reply. "What's this talk about me having a brother?"

The black haired woman directed her attention towards the television. On the screen, she watched a young boy with wild green hair and emerald eyes fly across a cartoonishly massive canyon while seemingly levitating some other people along with him.

"This guy's quirk is like yours. I remember you saying that not a lot people with telekinesis can fly. And from what they've shown us so far, he's pretty good."

"What's this child's name?" The green haired woman asked in a curious tone.

The black haired woman handed her a tablet that already had the kid's Sports Festival profile pulled up on it. And the green haired woman quickly scanned over the information. '_Izuku Midoriya, huh? This one show's promise.'_ She thought as she turned her attention back to the screen.

"Thank you for showing me this, Ozehana-chan. I'll be keeping my eye on this one. You don't come across talent like that very often."

"I had a feeling that you'd like him, Fubuki-san."

* * *

Once everyone finally made it across the canyon, the 1-B students were quick to come up on the next obstacle. And needless to say, they were not impressed by what they saw.

"A fucking minefield!" Awase gawked at what was before him.

"You've got to be kidding me." Komori dragged her hand across her face.

As it turns out, this was the most challenging obstacle yet. Not only had the 1-B students managed to catch up with the rest of the pack. It seemed as though everything came to a standstill as the other students in front of them were taking their sweet time navigating the area. Although they highly doubted that any of those bombs packed any type of lethal force, it would be in their best interests to avoid setting one off.

"We should just get Midoriya, Tokage and Yanagi to float us all over again." One of the students suggested.

"Sorry guys, but I'm gassed right now. I'm not used to carrying people with my quirk so I need some time to recover." Tokage admitted.

"I'm still good to go." Midoriya told them.

"It's fine, you guys need to save your strength for the next round if you can help it." Kendou responded before glancing at the students working their way through the obstacle. "Do anyone know what place we're in?"

"Including Shiozaki-san and Tetsutetsu-kun, our entire class should at least be in the top thirty. Give or take a few spots." Monoma informed her.

"Let me see if I can sink a few of these and clear a path." Honenuki announced before activating his '_softening'_ and aiming it towards an open space on his right. Unfortunately for him, and the short student with purple balls on his head not too far away, the movement was enough to set off a few of the mines.

"Damn!"

"No wait!" Kendou blurted out. "This a good thing. If Monoma-san and Honenuki-kun both soften the ground and set off the bombs, then they could just re-solidify the ground and we'll be good to go."

"Yeah, and Bondo-kun can lay another glue trap behind us."

"You guys good with that?" Tokage looked to the three boys.

"Fine with me."

"Yes."

"Let's do it!"

"**Our first group of competitors have crossed the finished line!"** The voice of Present Mic suddenly announced. "**In first place is Shouto Todoroki followed by Katsuki Bakugou!"**

Midoriya was more than a bit surprised after hearing this. He expected Bakugou to be one of the first ones done. But that fact that the ashen blonde teen ended up getting second was no doubt going to piss him off. Whoever that Todoroki person was, he was sure to have a major annoyance coming his way in the next round.

"**In third place from class 1-B, Ibara Shiozaki!"**

"Looks like we better get a move on." Honenuki said to Monoma with a high five.

The two boys used '_softening'_ and erected a thin path all the way to the other side of the obstacle. As expected, this caused nearly every single mine in the vicinity to go off simultaneously. The blast was even strong enough to cause a chain reaction and set off a few more mines nearby. With their biggest problem out of the way, the two of them re-solidified the ground and began making their way across.

"Let's go people!" Kendou shouted to the rest of her classmates.

The rest of the 1-B students quickly followed suit and began crossing as well. Along the way they couldn't help but give a few apologetic looks at whoever was unfortunate enough to get caught up in that blast. Midoriya took note of a particular student with purple hair and odd looking earlobes clutching the sides of her head and with a pained expression.

"Moptop!" Tokage shouted to Midoriya, catching his attention.

"Y-yes?"

"Up ahead." She pointed to a blonde haired kid with a tail and another with odd looking elbows. "I'll get the one with the tail, you move the other guy out of the way."

"Got it." He nodded before activating his quirk and lifting the other student off of his feet. Holding him in place while they all ran by him.

"Hey, what the hell?!" The black haired kid shouted.

At the same time, Tokage launched one of her hands out towards the tailed student and grabbed one of his ankles. Completely taking his foot out from under him. The student hit the ground with a loud groan.

"Alright guys, it's a straight shot from here on out! See you at the finish line!" Kendou shouted.

With the green light and the finish line only a few hundred meters in front of them, the 1-B students all took off in a dead sprint towards the stadium. Midoriya and Tokage booth took to the air, while Shishida and Tsunotori got on all fours and ran towards the end point. All the rest of the students could do was use their two legs to carry them across the finish line as fast as they could.

The crowd cheered as nearly their entire class finished at around the same time. Even though they were all certain that they made it, everyone immediately looked up at the stadium monitor to see where they ended up placing.

'_Tenth place, huh?'_ Midoriya smiled to himself.

'_Twelfth place? I guess Pony ended up beating me in that last sprint.'_ Tokage thought.

"Man, what took you guys so long?!" Tetsutetsu smiled as he approached his classmates.

"How did hell did you beat us here?"

"That guy with the ice quirk pretty much cleared a path for everyone. Sorry...but after the race started, I just got a bit too fired up. Still, you guys should've seen Shiozaki. This course was a piece of cake for her."

"Whatever, at least we all made it through."

"I guess we kind of failed on the whole "laying low" idea, didn't we?" Kendou smiled at everyone. For the most part, the students of 1-B placed relatively well. Most of them even managed to beat a few stragglers from 1-A. When the last competitor finally crossed the finish line, the horn sounded.

"Eh, it was still pretty fun though." Honenuki chuckled.

"Let's give a roaring round of applause for our top forty-four. These will be the students who advance to the next round!" Midnight announced while striking only a mildly inappropriate pose. "But now, the real fun is about to begin. The chance to fully move yourselves into the limelight. Now let's see what our next event will be!"

"The second event is usually some type of team game, right?" Tsuburaba whispered to Monoma.

"That's right."

A lightbulb went off over Tokage's head after hearing that. Depending on what event was, the right combination of quirks could determine victory. Her own quirk was versatile enough, but she knew exactly who she was going to try and partner up with.

"Prepare yourselves, for this!" Midnight gave another dramatic wave of the hand as the next challenge popped up on screen. "Oh, this is going to be a good one. The next trial for our lovely students will be a cavalry battle!"


	7. Sports Festival: Part 2

"Allow me to explain the rules." Midnight began with a dramatic wave of her whip. "The game itself will last fifteen minutes. Individual point values will be added together for your team's total. And everyone will know how much you're worth thanks to headbands. Swipe as many headbands as you can to raise your team's score. Stolen headbands must be worn from the neck up, or carried in your hands."

"That means the more you have, the harder it will be to see." Said Kendou.

"Also, even if your headband is stolen or your team falls down, you won't be disqualified. However, if the rider for your horse is one who hits the ground, you're done. And each team must have four members, no more, no less. You will also be able to use your quirks however you see fit. But, there are still rules. Make a team fall on purpose and you will be disqualified."

"So we can't just blast our way through the other teams. And we need to watch how we use our quirks."

"And now for the points value." The R-Rated heroine continued. "To make things more exciting and make your results from the last event more important, we've added a nice little twist. You have been assigned a point value based on when you returned. The last person will be worth five points, and then second to last will be worth ten and so on. Only Shouto Todoroki, who returned first, has an exemption to these rules. You see...he will be worth ten million points!"

Every set of eyes in the stadium turned towards the boy with the two-tone hair. Most people probably would've felt unnerved by the target now painted on his back. But the student in question looked completely apathetic to it all.

'_Wait...Todoroki? Is he related to Endeavor? Actually, they do share somewhat of a resemblance.'_ Midoriya thought once the boy's name registered in his mind. He did find it kind of odd how someone who could possibly be related to the flame hero had an ice based quirk of all things. '_Maybe he's from a different side of the family.'_

'_He's the guy who got the top spot on the recommendations exam.'_ Tokage said to herself.

With another wave of her whip, Midnight started the countdown for the students to assemble their teams. It didn't take long for the shuffle to begin. And the students wasted no time in branching off and conversing amongst their classmates.

Before he could even make a move, Midoriya felt something wrap around his shoulders. He quickly turned his head to see none other than Tokage giving him a toothy smirk. "So, you ready to do this partner? I'm counting on you!"

"Y-you wanna team up with me?" He arched an eyebrow at her.

"Hell yeah! Your quirk is perfect for this kind of thing."

'_Of course she'd only want to partner up with me because of my quirk.'_ Midoriya internalized before quickly shaking those thoughts out of his head. It was only logical to factor quirks into a team up like this.

"Plus it's best to team up with people that you know. And the both of us are pretty smart so it's bonus. Now, let's go look for the rest of our team."

"Who did you have in mind?"

Tokage chose not respond before grabbing the green haired boy by the arm and leading him towards the gaggle. A couple of minutes passed before the girl spotted a head of gray hair standing by itself on the outside of the group.

"Yo Yanagi, you don't have a team yet do you?"

"No." The girl shook her head. "I was going to try and team up with Kendou-chan and Tetsutetsu-kun, but the two of them decided to work with that other guy." She said while pointing towards the two classmates in question. Tokage turned her gaze in that direction to see her two friends along with Shiozaki listening to some guy with wild purple hair and bags under his eyes talk.

'_Damn, I was hoping for at least one of them to join us.'_ The girl clicked her teeth. "Well, there goes the rest of my plan. Metalhead or Itsuka would've been the perfect frontman."

The group of three looked around for a minute in hopes of locating their final member. Most everyone was still shuffling around and the only people available seemed to be members of 1-A. Tokage had nothing against the students in the other hero course. But it was too risky to add on someone who's quirk and skillset was a complete unknown.

Suddenly out of the corner of his eye, Midoriya spotted another student walk away from a group of his classmates. Their combination of quirks was already pretty good, but this one student in particular had exactly what they needed to get into the next round. "How about him?" He asked while pointing at his suggestion.

The two girls followed his finger to where it was pointing and Tokage couldn't help but smile at the idea. "I like the way you think, Moptop."

Midoriya, Tokage and Yanagi quickly shifted over to the boy in question. Yosetsu Awase, Class 1-B's resident foul mouth. Before the headband wearing student knew what was happening, Tokage had grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. "Awase, you're on our team." She told him matter of factly.

The boy looked at the three of them for a moment before nodding his head in understanding. "Okay, fine with me. I was gonna team up with Monoma's group, but they kicked me out for Tsuburaba."

"Alright, now that we have everyone let's go over strategy."

"So what's the plan?" Yanagi inquired.

"We have a decent number of points in this group. But shouldn't we be figuring out how to grab that ten million points? With Midoriya here, all we need to do is get that headband and have him float us out of everyone's reach."

"Actually Awase-san, if anything we should be avoiding Todoroki-san's team?"

"What, why?!"

"Moptop's right, we should stay as far away from his group as we can. Everyone's gonna be hounding whoever has those points. So we should stick to the outside and stay incognito."

"Okay…" Awase nodded. Midoriya and Tokage were two of the smarter kids in class so he trusted that they could come up with a good strategy. "So how are we going to do this?"

* * *

Midoriya couldn't remember the last time he felt this nervous as his group waited for the horn to sound. Looking around the field and staring down his own classmates made his heart rate jump a bit. Sure, they weren't the main target. But he was certain that a couple of teams were going to be coming after them based on their quirks alone. Yet despite his nerves, Midoriya was feeling really good about the impending chaos. Especially with the strategy that their group had concocted for this event.

Out of nowhere, the boy felt a light squeeze on his left shoulder.

"Damn dude, I can almost smell your nervousness from here." Tokage smirked at him. "We'll be fine."

'_Man, his shoulders are solid.'_

"Are you guys sure that you want me as the rider? I mean, either one of you would make a lot more sense." Awase asked for the fourth time.

"You're actually the perfect person for the job." Yanagi answered. "Since you can weld the points to your head, everything that we manage to get will be safe."

"All you need to do is keep your eyes peeled, hold on to those points and let us do the heavy lifting." Tokage added on.

"Okay." The '_weld'_ quirk user nodded.

**"Beginning the second event! Prepare yourself for this totally brutal battle royal!" **Present Mic said as his voice rang through the stadium. **"START!"**

As if on cue, almost every team in the stadium charged directly for Team Todoroki. This was to be expected though and it gave their team the perfect chance to scout out the competition. Fifteen minutes was more than enough to secure a spot in the final round. For now, they were just going to play the waiting game.

Just as the two greenettes predicted, all of the attention in the stadium was strictly focused on the ten million points. While most every other team around them made their plays at the guaranteed victory, Team Awase waited for their opportunity to strike. Luckily for them, that opportunity came when one of 1-A's teams ran right past them. Their rider appeared to have some sort of invisibility quirk, which meant that you couldn't see where their hands were moving. But seeing as the headband was facing away from them, the student wasn't paying their group any attention.

"Yanagi." Tokage told the girl while pointing. The '_poltergeist'_ user gave a quick nod and used her quirk to discreetly lift the headband off their head. The girl wasted no time in floating the piece of cloth back over to them and letting Awase catch it before welding it to the back of his neck.

'_She was able to do that with such finesse. I probably would've jerked that person's head if I tried to do it.'_ Midoriya briefly marveled at his teammate's skill.

With their first score of the day, Team Awase decided to move around. Staying in the same spot wasn't a good idea. On top of that, the mob was slowly making their way over to them. The game went on for another few minutes and their team managed to discreetly grab another headband without the other noticing. That group was yet another team made up of members from 1-A. Tokage was able to reach inside the masked kid's protective shell and slip the headband off that Tsu girl without her noticing.

Everything was going according to plan until their team began sinking into the ground. The students looked over to see Team Monoma heading towards them. Their group consisting of Tsuburaba, Honenuki. Kuroiro and of course, Monoma.

"Sorry guys, but you weren't the only ones keeping a low profile." The '_copy'_ quirk user taunted. "No hard feelings, right?"

"Dammit!" Tokage cursed before squeezing her teammate's shoulder. "Moptop!"

"On it!" Midoriya said before activating his quirk and lifting them out of the quicksand. Although the area that Honenuki could manipulate was large, it wasn't any trouble for the boy to float them to safety.

"How about we call a truce?" Tokage smirked back. Monoma may have been a weasel, but he was smart enough to see that they were at a disadvantage when it came to quirks.

The group of boys simply stared at them for a moment before Monoma gave Honenuki the signal to turn around. The blonde haired boy had been hoping to copy Midoriya's quirk. But trying to get close to them was going to be an obstacle that would take up a lot of time. Instead, their team opted to go after the loud mouth blonde from 1-A.

With that minor inconvenience out of the way, Team Awase continued avoiding the rest of the teams. They were sitting comfortably in third place, but no one was even paying them any attention. The only real hiccup came during a brief face off with Team Kodai where Bondo almost glued their feet to the ground. But besides that, they managed to stay safe.

* * *

Back in the commentator's booth, Present Mic was doing his best not to spoil the fun.

"Geez Shouta, your class isn't even paying attention to the 1-B teams. I don't think any of them have even checked the scoreboard in a while." The voice hero commented while placing his hand over the microphone.

"They're too focused on the ten million points. It may be logical to prioritize eliminating Team Bakugou and Team Todoroki altogether, but they're neglecting half of the other competitors." A heavily bandaged Aizawa groaned out.

"Part of me wants to rain on their parade, but I can't wait to see how they'll react if the standings stay how they are now."

"They'll just have to learn the consequences of not being aware of their surroundings."

* * *

As the clock began winding down, Tokage couldn't help but smile at how easy all of this was. Sure she didn't really get any chances to stand out so far, but she'll have more than enough opportunities for that in the tournament. The green haired girl was about to start celebrating right then and there before an audible gasp from Yanagi brought her back to reality.

"Midoriya-kun get us off the ground." The grey haired teen said earnestly.

"Wha-"

"Now." She ordered.

Midoriya didn't give it a second thought and immediately lifted their team into the air. And it's a good thing that he did. Because barely a couple of seconds later nearly half of the field was assaulted by a massive wave of electricity. All Team Awase could do was watch their classmates convulse in discomfort at the unexpected attack.

"What the fuck was that?!" Awase asked while looking around.

"There." Yanagi pointed to Team Todoroki. "I remember that blonde boy's quirk from the entrance exam. He used it to electrocute a good amount of robots in one area."

The other '_telekinesis'_ user in the group took a second to watch Team Todoroki continue maintaining their hold on first place. Bakugou had just made a pass at them, but the ashe blonde boy's attack was thwarted by a wall of ice. It was in that moment that Midoriya noticed the large stone rod that Todoroki used to freeze the ground with. Now he thought about it, the heterochromatic student had used similar techniques during the obstacle course.

'_Does he need contact with the ground to freeze things?'_ He wondered before Awase gave him a nudge on the shoulder and told him to go the opposite way.

With that last obstacle avoided, Team Awase was able to hold on to third place. There was a mad dash for the ten million points at the end, but they managed to stay out of the way of that nonsense and keep everyone else at bay. And barely a few seconds later, the sound of the horn signaled that the battle was over.

"Alright ladies and gentlemen, let's check out the standings for the cavalry battle. As you are all aware, only the top four teams will advance to the next round!" Midnight announced as she dramatically motioned towards the monitor. "With 10,000,455 points is Team Todoroki in first place!"

Naturally, the crowd began cheering for the winners.

"In second place, Team Bakugou. With 1,685 points!"

More cheers followed the announcement of second place.

"Taking the third place spot, is Team Awase. With 1,590 points!"

"Who?" More than a few of the 1-A students said in unison while checking the other teams. Midoriya could almost feel the death glare that Bakugou was giving him across the field.

"In fourth place is Team Shinsou. With 670 points!" The R-Rated heroine announced.

_'Who the hell is Shinsou?'_ Tokage thought as she looked around. After a brief second of searching, the green haired girl's eyes locked onto the group consisting of Tetsutetsu, Kendou, Shiozaki and that same purple haired boy from earlier. What was strange was that everyone on that team aside from the tired looking student all had confused looks on their faces. And Tetsutetsu was rubbing his eyes really hard.

"And finally, we have Team Kodai. With 330 points!" She motioned toward the only other team that was able to retain their headband. Apparently they played a more defensive strategy but never seized the opportunity to get some extra points. Also, Kodai shrunk down her headband and kept it wrapped around one of her fingers.

"Congratulations to all our competitors! But especially to our sixteen finalists! We're going to take a brief one hour lunch for our fans and students to relax before the final round and prepare the arena. But before that, here are the matchups for the upcoming one-on-one tournament." Midnight said with yet another exaggerated motion towards the stadium monitor.

On cue, the first bracket for the final tournament appeared on the screen.

Midoriya vs Todoroki

Iida vs Awase

Bakugou vs Tetsutetsu

Shiozaki vs Kaminari

Shinsou vs Ashido

Tokage vs Sero

Yanagi vs Yaoyorozu

Kendou vs Kirishima

While Tokage and the others were high-fiving each other for making to the final round, Midoriya couldn't help but feel a slight tingle down his spine. '_I'll guess I'll be going up against the favorite in the first round.'_ He thought as he turned his gaze towards Todoroki, only to be met with the sight of the teenager looking aloof and completely uninterested.

"Man Midoriya, you're a lifesaver dude!" Awase patted the green haired boy on the back.

"Huh?"

"Awase-kun is correct." Yanagi stoically added. "If it wasn't for you then we wouldn't have been able to get passed this round."

"W-Well you guys did a r-really good job too." Midoriya nervously retorted.

"Y'know...for someone as powerful as you are, you're pretty humble. Usually people with strong ass quirks are major dickwads."

"O-oh uh, y-yeah…."

"We should hurry and get to the cafeteria before it gets crowded." The gray haired teen suggested.

While the three of them began their journey to get some much needed lunch, Tokage went to go check on her friends. The remaining members of Team Shinsou were all giving each other weird and confused looks.

"You guys okay?" The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user asked with much concern in her voice.

"What the hell just happened?" Tetsutetsu looked around in a perplexed manner.

"I don't…" Kendou started while shaking her head. "I don't remember anything..."

"Neither do I." Shiozaki echoed.

"What?" The other green haired teen tilted her head in curiosity. This didn't sound good at all.

"That guy, the one with the purple hair. I...I think he did something to us!" Tetsutetsu suddenly blurted out.

"I think Tetsutetsu's right."

"Do you guys need to head over to Recovery Girl?" Tokage asked the trio.

"I don't think so."

A now annoyed Tetsutetsu slammed a fist into his open palm. "That son of a bitch! Where the hell does get off doing something like that? I don't even remember what he did to us!"

"Shiozaki-chan, do you not remember anything at all?"

"No." The vine haired girl shook her head. "The last thing I remember is you three approaching me and then everything went...foggy."

Tokage turned towards the tunnel to catch a glimpse of Shinsou casually strolling his way over to the exit. Something about this wash fishy. The fact that three of the strongest students in her class had no recollection of what happened certainly didn't sit right with her.

"Well...whatever that guy did, you can just get back at him during the next round. Actually, you might not even get a chance since I might have to fight him before any of you." The girl smirked with thumbs up.

"Ugh...this is so annoying! Just what the hell is that guy's quirk?"

"Worry about it later. For now, let's just get some food in our guts and start strategizing."

"Setsuna's right." Kendou interjected. "There's nothing we can do about it now. We just need to pay close attention to that Shinsou guy during the first round. Plus, I kinda want a chance to get back at him for doing whatever the heck it is that he did to us."

"That's the spirit!" Tokage cheered while grabbing the three of them of them in her arms and making a beeline for the cafeteria. "Neither of us are going up against him in the first round so we can scout him out. Now let's go get our grub on!"

* * *

On his way to the cafeteria, Midoriya made a detour over to the locker room to grab his phone. Once he retrieved the device he wasted no time looking up the highlights from the previous two rounds. More specifically, the highlights of Shouto Todoroki.

The heterochromatic teen was powerful, there was no denying that. And his quirk could cover a wide area in an instant. However, as he was looking over the footage from the boy's exploits during the obstacle race he took note of one particular detail. Every time Todoroki used his quirk, it came from a body part that was in contact with the ground at the time. He mainly used his feet, but every now and then he would freeze something by touching it with his hand.

'_I guess I was right after all.'_ Midoriya told himself.

It didn't take long for the boy to make it over to the student cafeteria and grab his food. Like usual, he went with a decent sized bowl of katsudon and a large glass of water. On any other day, he would've quickly scurried up to his normal lunchtime location. But seeing as they were in the stadium instead of the main campus, that wasn't really an option for him. Midoriya began searching for a nice, quiet place to eat his food and go over his strategy. But a familiar voice caught his attention.

"Hey Midoriya-kun, we saved you a seat!" Honenuki called out to him. The boy looked over to where the lipless teen was sitting only to see that his class had pretty much taken over an entire section for themselves. Although he would've preferred eating alone, the stunning lack of open seats heavily influenced his ability to make a decision.

"T-thank you, Honenuki-san." He said as he took the open spot across from the boy. This particular seat was at the end of the table. To his right was Yanangi and across from him on Honenuki's left was Tsunotori.

"Are you ready for the next round? You're the first one up, right?"

"Y-yeah." Midoriya nervously answered. "Sorry you guys got eliminated in the last round."

"Eh, it I what it is." Honenuki shrugged. "Honestly, that guy from 1-A with the explosion quirk just got the better of us. I thought sinking his teammate's feet would've been enough to slow him down. But I guess it wasn't."

"Yeah, blast man very fast with powers." A slightly dejected Tsunotori added on.

As it turns out, Team Bakugou was the reason both of their groups didn't advance to the tournament stage. Apparently Monoma decided that it would be a good idea to antagonize the boy about some incident that occurred a while ago. And Tsunotori's team had their headband stolen from them in the final seconds.

"Well, you guys still did great out there." Midoriya told them in an attempt to brighten up their moods.

"Hey, better luck next year right? At least we got a chance to show off to the pros a bit. So I'm not too worried about internship offers. Plus, I get to relax for the rest of the day and enjoy the show. And I'm definitely looking forward to how you handle Todoroki-san." Honenuki joked.

"That guy got first place in both events. He's probably the overall favorite to win the entire thing." Awase added on from his spot next to Yanagi. "If anything, Midoriya's got to face the toughest opponent right out the gate."

"I overheard some of the 1-A guys say that he's the strongest one on their class while we were in line." Kaibara spoke up.

"Midoriya-san will do nice, because he can jump through air. That other guy only freezes things." Tsunotori was next to voice her opinion in broken Japanese.

"He still shouldn't take the guy lightly though. I remember him during the recommendations exam. He's powerful as hell and he's quick with his ice."

"Oh yeah, I forgot you got into U.A. on recommendations." Awase waved his chopsticks at the lipless teen.

"Yeah, barely." Honenuki shot back.

"What do you mean?" Midoriya asked.

"The only reason I got in was because someone else pulled their application a couple of days after the exam was over. If it wasn't for that I would've had to take the regular entrance exam like everyone else."

"Why the hell would someone pull their application from U.A.?" Kaibara wondered.

All Honenuki could do was give him a confused shrug. "Who knows? Either way, Midoriya-kun's gonna have his work cut out for him."

"He'll be fine!" The horned teen gave Midoriya a thumbs up.

It was certainly an odd feeling for the boy to be given a vote of confidence by anyone, let alone another classmate. Although he did appreciate the kind words, his mind was more focused on the task at hand. If everything they were saying about this Todoroki guy was true, then he was going to have to be careful.

The conversation went on pretty normally for the next fifteen minutes before the stadium's intercom sounded. "**Will Izuku Midoriya and Shouto Todoroki please report to the designated waiting area."**

With that, the green haired boy stood up and began making his way over to the exit.

'_Alright Izuku, it's_ showtime.'


	8. Sports Festival: Part 3

You could feel the anticipation in the air as the crowd waited for the all important one-on-one tournament to begin. After all, this was the one event that everyone was waiting to see. Following the announcement of the first bracket, it was hard to miss the spectators, pro heroes included, placing their bets to see who would come out on top. From what the 1-B students could gather, Bakugou and Todoroki were the favorites to win it all. However, Shiozaki, Midoriya, Tokage and Tetsutetsu seemed to be amongst the list of notable contenders as well.

As the students of class 1-B took their seats in their assigned section, Tokage, Tetsutetsu, Shiozaki and Kendou all decided to sit together to cheer on their classmate. The only person in their class not present at the moment besides Midoriya was Awase since his match was up next.

Everyone was curious as to how this first fight was going to play out. Based on everything that they had heard, Todoroki was probably the strongest amongst the first years. And having the ability to freeze anything with a mere touch was certainly one to be feared.

"This guy's supposed to be Endeavor's son, right?" Tsuburaba asked no one in particular.

"Yeah, it's weird how he has the exact opposite quirk."

"He doesn't." Monoma interjected, earning a few curious looks. The '_copy'_ quirk user then passed the boy his phone to show him the profile for the heterochromatic teen. "He has a dual quirk. He can use both flames and ice."

"Seriously?"

"I wonder why he hasn't shown off that part of his quirk yet. It would've been quite effective to use during the cavalry battle." Shishida stated while adjusting his glasses.

"I don't think it really matters though." Honenuki was next to speak.

"Why not?"

"Because Moptop's gonna win." Tokage was the one to answer.

"What makes you so sure?"

"It doesn't matter if Todoroki can use ice _or_ fire. He's at a disadvantage when it comes to quirks. This fight will be over pretty quickly."

"You seem pretty confident in Midoriya-kun's skill." Yanagi gave a curious look.

"Of course I am."

* * *

Over in the 1-A section, the rest of their classmates were having a completely different conversation.

"So does anyone know the deal with this Midoriya guy?" Ojiro asked around.

"Beats me." Kaminari shrugged.

"He's kind of plain looking, isn't he?"

"I wasn't even paying attention to him during the last round. Now that I think about it, I don't remember seeing any of the 1-B guys except for that annoying blonde kid and the furry guy's team." Said Ashido as she racked her brain to see if she could remember the greenette.

"Do you think he even stands a chance?"

"Against Todoroki, probably not." Sero sneered.

At the other end of the booth, Uraraka decided to keep quiet. She was pretty sure that her and Iida were the only ones in their class that had ever seen the boy use his quirk. Part of her wanted to blow the whistle and inform her classmates of his powers. But seeing, as she still owed the guy for saving her butt back at the entrance exam _and_ her verbal folly a few weeks ago, she decided to keep her mouth shut.

"What do think, Ochako-chan?" Asui asked the brunette.

"I think that this round's gonna be real interestin'." The girl simply said.

"It doesn't matter what you losers think. Deku's gonna fucking lose!" Bakugou angrily voiced his opinion.

* * *

**"Alright ladies and gentlemen, the time is now. The moment that you've all been waiting for! Our one-on-one battle tournament!"**

The crowd erupted into cheers and howls once Present Mic's voice came through the stadium speakers.

"**Now, our first competitor from the hero course's Class 1-A. His blood may run hot but he's as cool as ice. He also got admitted through recommendations. Please give it up for Shouto Todoroki!"**

More cheers followed as everyone focused in on the son of the number two hero.

"**Next up, from the hero course's class 1-B. He tied for the top spot on the written exam and got third place on hero course practical exam. Izuku Midoriya!"**

"Oh wow, I didn't know Midoriya-san scored third on the entrance exam." Shoda stated.

As he made his approach to his end of the ring, Midoriya took a moment to look at his opponent. The heterochromatic teen was giving off an aura of cold intimidation that sent a metaphorical chill down his spine. He had almost no real information on this guy. And the fact that he got into U.A. on recommendations means that he was powerful if not very skilled.

'_I'm pretty certain about him needing to have contact with the ground to use is quirk. I should probably try and just float him out of the ring as soon as Midnight-sensei starts the match.'_ He told himself while thinking over his strategy. '_But just to be safe, I'm going to take to the air so he doesn't freeze my feet.' _

"Alright boys, I want a good clean match. No hits below the belt and no excessive use of force. Do you both understand?" The two boys gave a quick nod to the deviously dressed referee.

"Let the first match, begin!" Midnight shouted with a wave of her whip.

The second the words left her lips, Todoroki sent out an absolutely massive wave of ice towards his opponent. If the heterochromatic teen's goal was to show off his power, then he definitely succeeded. Nearly a third of stadium was frozen over once the initial shock settled and the temperature had dropped significantly over the entire area.

* * *

"What...the...fuck?" Kamakiri gawked at the glacier in total disbelief.

"This…is insane."

"Did this guy just make a fucking iceberg?" Tsuburaba needed confirmation just to make sure that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.

"Where's Midoriya-kun?" Yanagi whispered in a worried tone.

The 1-B students began searching the ice with their eyes. But none of them could see their green haired classmate. They were all absolutely certain that he was somewhere in that attack.

"Up there!" Tokage suddenly pointed towards the middle of the arena.

* * *

_~Class 3-A~_

"Ooh Tamaki-kun, look! That one can fly!" A bubbly blunette blurted out in a jovial fashion.

"_I'd be terrified of being up that high?"_ A boy with pointed ears mumbled into his desk.

"And he's adorable too! I bet Ryukyu would love him. I'm gonna send her a text. You think that's a good idea too, right?! He'd match our group's theme perfectly!"

* * *

Back in the ring, Todoroki took a second to look at the ice wall that he created. He definitely overused his quirk with that attack, but he needed to send a message. And he would no doubt have an ample amount of time to recover until his next match.

"This match is ov-" The boy was cut off when he suddenly felt his feet leave the ground. For a split second, Todoroki lost his composure at this unfamiliar sensation and began looking around. Something wasn't right, that attack should've completely immobilized his opponent. Before another thought could cross his mind, he heard someone in the crowd yell and point towards the sky.

The boy upturned his gaze to see his opponent floating in mid air. Well above the wall of ice that he had just made with his hand extended out towards him. '_He can fly?'_

'_I just lucked out big time.'_ Midoriya breathed a sigh of relief. '_If I hadn't decided to immediately get off the ground, I would've been frozen.' _

The green haired teen took a second to look over his opponent who he was levitating towards the boundary line. Based on the fact that Todoroki hadn't tried to launch an attack at him while he was is the air, Midoriya surmised that his earlier assumptions about the boy's quirk were correct. With no intention of delaying things any further, the verdant teen used his telekinesis to float the boy over the boundary line and set him down on the grass outside of the ring.

"S-Shouto Todoroki i-i-is out of b-bounds!" A half frozen Midnight announced as Cementoss rushed to her aid.

A brief silence fell over the crowd before a massive roar erupted in the stadium.

Somewhere in the hero section, a certain flame hero had accidentally melted part of the wall behind him.

* * *

"Wait…what?!" Mineta shouted what everyone else in 1-A seemed to be thinking.

"This guy just beat Todoroki?"

"No way." Hagakure whispered out in a bewildered tone.

"What the heck is his quirk?"

"It appears as though this Izuku Midoriya is not one to be taken lightly." Tokoyami simply stated.

"Yeah…I pretty much expected that to happen." Uraraka laughed only loud enough for Asui to hear her.

While the other 1-A students were still shaking their heads in disbelief at how easy of a victory that appeared to be, one student was unusually quiet. A whirlwind of emotions were going through Bakugou's head at the moment and none of them were pleasant. He didn't know whether or not he wanted to strangle someone or punch them in the face. He doesn't know when or how that shitty loser got a quirk. But he was going to find out. Because anyone who tries to make a fool of Katsuki Bakugou was going to pay the price.

"I don't get it." Kaminari started. "If this guy can fly, why didn't he do that during the obstacle race? He probably would've came in first place."

"That Monoma guy did say that most of the 1-B students intentionally held back. Maybe he was one of them?"

"Yes, that does appear to be the case." Yaoyorozu agreed.

* * *

"Hell yeah, Moptop! I told you guys he was gonna win!" Tokage nearly jump up out of her seat as she cheered loud enough for the 1-A students to hear her.

"Looks like Tokage-san was right."

"That was a close one wasn't it?" Honenuki let out a sigh of relief.

"I'll say."

"It looks like Midoriya-kun just set the bar pretty high. I hope you guys are ready."

"Awase-kun is up next. Let's hope our class can go two for two."

* * *

_~Blizzard Hero Agency, Saitama Prefecture~_

"Man, I bet Endeavor ain't too happy about that!" The black haired woman known as Ozehana began laughing so hard that she had to clutch her sides. The green haired woman known as Fubuki decided not to say anything before standing up and walking towards her office.

"Where're you going boss?"

"To file my internship request. I've seen more than enough."

"Sweet!"

* * *

A few minutes later, Midoriya returned to his classmates while everyone waited for the next match to begin. There was a bit of a delay considering they had to bring in a crew of people with fire quirks to break down the ice. But this just gave everyone more than enough time to congratulate their new Ace.

"Midoriya-kun/san!" Everyone practically shouted at the boy. His face immediately heating up at all of this unwanted attention.

"Dude, you just beat the son of the number two hero! You're probably about to get a ton of internship offers off of that alone." Tetsutetsu told him.

"Yo Moptop, I saved you a seat." Tokage pointed to the open spot next to her.

Midoriya did plan on sitting by himself over in the back corner. But it would've been rude to just outright deny the girl's offer. And he didn't want to come off that way to his classmates. Overall, he didn't really know what the others thought of him, but it wasn't really a good idea to lessen their opinion.

"Uh...t-thank you, Tokage-san."

"You did well, Midoriya-kun." Yanagi whispered.

"To be honest, you probably just became one fo the favorites to win the tournament, Midoriya-kun." Kendou gave him a quick smile.

"You think so?" The boy said with a slight chuckle while rubbing the back of his head. It still felt weird for him to receive any type of praise. He just wasn't used to the feeling. A part of him wanted to be happy about it. But deep down he knew that the other students wouldn't have been half as nice to him if he didn't have his quirk.

"Awase-kun is up next. Let's hope that he can beat that 1-A loser." Monoma said smugly.

* * *

The next match featured Awase versus the vice-representative from class 1-A, Tenya Iida. To say that things were over rather quickly would be an accurate assessment. As it turns out, the indigo haired teen had some type of speed quirk. The headband wearing student didn't even have a chance to blink or use his quirk to weld his feet to the ground before being forced out of the ring.

'_Iida-san's quirk is definitely powerful, it bears a resemblance to the pro hero Ingenium's. The two of them are probably related. I'm going up against him in the next round. I don't know how long he can use that speed boost of his, but I should try and avoid his reach.'_

"Poor Awase-san, he stood no chance." Tsunotori said.

"Welp, I better head down to the waiting area." Tetsutetsu stood up and began stretching out his shoulders. After Shiozaki and Kaminari was his match against Bakugou. The silver haired teen was more than a bit excited to show his stuff.

"Knock 'em dead." Tokage shot him a thumbs up.

"Hey Midoriya, you know this guy, right? You got any advice on how to beat him?"

The green haired teen hesitated for a moment while he thought of an answer. Tetsutetsu's quirk was ideal for this kind of thing, but Bakugou was never one to be taken lightly.

"He's a lot smarter than he lets on, so don't underestimate him. His battle instincts are also very good." He said before giving one last piece of advice. "Also...more than likely he'll start the fight off with a big right, so look out for that."

"Thanks man!" The '_steel'_ quirk user shot him a thumbs up before taking his leave.

"You sure do know a lot about this guy." Tokage arched an eyebrow at him. "The two of you fight before or something?"

"Something like that." Midoriya simply said. His face slightly shifting into a darkened expression.

'_Okay, these two definitely have history.'_

* * *

Shiozaki versus Kaminari proved to be another quick victory. The electric quirk user tried to fire off what looked to be a maximum voltage attack only to be quickly subdued by Shiozaki's vines. This match was the second fastest so far, being over in less than fifteen seconds.

_'Kaminari-san simply drew the short straw for this match. Shiozaki-san's quirk is the perfect counter for his electricity, and she has the skill to use it both offensively and defensively. If I remember correctly, she came in fourth on the entrance exam with a very good score.'_

* * *

Tetsutetsu versus Bakugou ended up being the longest match of the tournament so far. To put it simply, it was a battle of endurance. The 1-B student took his classmate's advice and was ready for a big right swing from Bakugou. He was able to block it in time and tried to follow up with a big punch of his own, but the ashe blonde teen was somehow able to dodge it. What followed was essentially Tetsutetsu taking wave after wave of explosions until his body finally overheated and gave out. But he did manage to land a clean gut punch on the boy that made him stumble. The entire display lasted about ten minutes before the silver haired teen hit the ground from exhaustion.

'_Tetsutetsu-san honestly lasted longer than I expected. And Bakugou's ferociousness is just as bad I remember. If we both win our next fights then I'll have to go up against him in the semi-finals.'_

"This Deidara wannabe sure is tough, isn't he?" Kaibara said.

"He fights like a wild animal." Shishida added.

* * *

The following match was the one that Tokage was the most curious about. This Hitoshi Shinsou guy from the general studies was the one that was on a team with Tetsutetsu and Kendou. She was interested in what type of quirk the guy had but her friends couldn't really give her a straight answer.

In the waiting room, she watched the television screen with rapt attention. The purple haired boy was going up against the pink girl from 1-A. She didn't know what her quirk was. But judging by the confident smirk on her face, it had to be something good.

Merely a few seconds after Midnight lowered her whip, Tokage was stunned by what she saw. Instead of battling, Ashido simply turned around and walked out of the ring. Making Shinsou the winner without so much as lifting a finger. To say that the green haired girl was confused would be an understatement. But she now had a better understanding of what she was up against.

Unfortunately, the girl didn't really have much time to think about it before the loudspeaker told her to report to the ring.

'_Alright Setsuna, time to go out there and show 'em what you got!'_

* * *

"**Alright ladies and germs, let's move on to the next match."** Present Mic shouted into the microphone. "**First up is the vice-rep from the hero course's class 1-B. Yet another student who was admitted through recommendations, Setsuna Tokage!"**

"Don't lose, dammit!" Tetsutetsu hollered from the 1-B booth.

"**And her opponent from the hero course's class 1-A. He may be plain looking but his powers are marvelous, give it up for Hanta Sero!"**

The moment Midnight began the match, Tokage was briefly thrown off guard when Sero unleashed what appeared to be a line of tape from his elbow and wrapped it around her body. The black haired student from 1-A proceeded to use this opportunity to try and fling the girl out of bounds. However, Tokage had other plans.

The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user detached her top half from her bottom half before her feet could reach the boundary line. Needless to say, Sero was so thrown off by seeing this that he loosened his grip on the rest of her body. With that momentary lapse in judgement, Tokage broke up her top half and sent her arms flying towards him. The resulting uppercut was enough put the black haired teen out of commission.

"Hanta Sero is unable to continue. Setsuna Tokage is the winner!" Midnight shouted with a bit more enthusiasm than she did for the first few matches.

'_Man that was a close one.'_ The girl thought to herself while walking down the steps and giving a polite wave to the crowd. '_If I had been anyone else, I might've lost.'_

* * *

The following match pitted Yanagi against the representative of Class 1-A, Momo Yaoyorozu. Tokage remembered the girl from the recommendations exam and she had possibly one of the most broken quirks that she's ever heard of. But she was confident in her classmate's skills.

When the match began, Yaoyorozu immediately created some sort of bo staff and iron shield and charged directly at Yanagi. Yet the moment she was in range of her quirk, the grey haired teen used her '_poltergeist'_ to rip both objects from her grasp. Yaoyorozu hesitated for a moment and reacted by forming another bo staff, only to get a similar result.

With three objects now under control, Yanagi turned the weapons on their creator and used them to strike the girl in three separate places at the same time. The force of the impacts were more than enough knockout the raven haired teen and Yanagi was declared the winner in less than a minute.

'_Yaoyorozu-san's quirk is nothing short of amazing, but Yanagi-san is just too skilled. She has a level of finesse and control that I don't really think that I can match right now. If her weight limit and range weren't so restricted, I don't think I'd be able to stand a chance.'_

* * *

The final match of the first round was between Kendou and Eijiro Kirishima from 1-A. It was probably one of the more anticlimactic fights of the day seeing as Kirishima decided to take the direct approach and tried to get into a slugfest with class rep of 1-B. Once it was clear that the red haired teen had no long range capabilities, Kendou enlarged her hand, grabbed the boy tight enough to where he couldn't move and tossed him out of the ring.

"Hey...this guy's quirk is the same as your's, Metalhead." Tokage grinned at her friend.

"Tch, mine's better." Tetsutetsu jokingly replied.

'_Kendou-san's dangerous at close range. I remember her saying that she was a martial artist. It's best to just keep her at a distance. And Kirishima-san's approach was just too straightforward. He didn't really stand a chance.'_

* * *

"Damn, these 1-B guys are no joke. All of them seem pretty powerful and their quirks are hard to work around." Ojiro voiced his opinion.

"That general studies kid is a problem too, gero."

"I still don't even remember what happened during our match." Ashido groaned in shame.

"Bakugou-san and Iida-san have their work cutout for them. Especially Iida-san since he'll have to go against that Midoriya guy." Rin added.

"I'm pretty sure that's the guy who tripped me up during the end of the obstacle course." Sero scowled

"I guess we shouldn't have been sleeping on the other class so bad."

* * *

Inside the faculty viewing area, the teachers were giving their own assessments of the first round.

"Well, Kan-kun. It seems like your class decided to show up after all." Thirteen told the white haired man.

"I'll say." Snipe chuckled while twirling his empty pistol. "I bet Aizawa's gotta be pissed that most of his students got eliminated so easily. I wouldn't be surprised if he expelled one of them after the tournament was over just to save face."

Hound Dog was next to speak up. "According to social media, Midoriya's now one of the favorites along with Bakugou."

"Isn't that the kid that you and Aizawa fought over after the entrance exams?"

"Yeah." Kan nodded proudly. '_My students are amazing! I have the best class ever!'_

"What's his deal? He doesn't strike me as the flashy type, but his quirk is top notch. He kind of reminds me of Tornado with how he uses his powers to fly around like that. Are they related?"

"According to him, they're not. Like most of my class, Midoriya's the quiet type. I think he tries to avoid attention more than anyone else. But his grades are excellent and he definitely seems like more of a "thinker" than a "fighter"."

While that conversation was going on, Toshinori Yagi was looking over the profile for the boy in question. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something about this green haired wonder seemed familiar. The blonde haired man had a feeling that he had met him somewhere before.

The boy performed very well in all of their heroics classes up until now and he seemed very bright. Like Kan said, he seemed to shy away from attention based on what he had seen and didn't talk a lot. But he was a good student nonetheless. However, Yagi could pinpoint a few times during class where he caught Midoriya shooting him an uncomfortable glare. Something that didn't sit right with him.

"Is something the matter, Toshinori-kun?" Nezu asked the emaciated blonde.

"No sir, just marveling at the fine crop of students this year. It appears as though a lot of them have been holding out on me during class."

"Indeed." The bipedal mammal nodded. "Who knows, one of them might even be able to give your favorite student a run for his money."

"Maybe sir." Yagi simply smiled and laughed at his boss' remark.

* * *

**Author's Notes: How did you guys like those battles? To be honest, pretty much all of these fights were mismatches that heavily favored one side. I didn't feel like writing all of them out, so I just gave a brief summary of the events. (Sorry Awase).**

**I feel like I already gave my justification for Midoriya and Todoroki's match in the last chapter. I actually double-checked Todoroki's quirk to make sure that he needs to some type of physical contact to be able to freeze things and we all know that he wasn't going to use his fire so easily. On top of that, this was their first ever interaction so Midoriya didn't feel compelled to "save" him. This will be relevant later on the fic.**


	9. Sports Festival: Part 4

With the second round of the tournament about to begin, Midoriya was making his way over the ring. Things had been going smoothly so far. But the very real probability that he was going to have to go up against Bakugou was still lingering in his mind. In truth, the thought of throwing the next match just to avoid this confrontation did cross his mind. But his heart wasn't about to let him do that. Midoriya had spent years running away from the guy. And he wasn't about to let the lingering fear that he still had for him cloud his judgment.

Right as Midoriya made his way around the corner and onto the next hall, he was caught by surprise when he found himself standing face-to-face with none other than Enji Todoroki. More commonly known as the Flame Hero: Endeavor. He quickly realized that pictures never really did the man justice and that he was much more intimidating in person. And the constant stream of flames emanating from his body only added to his look.

"There you are, boy." The flame hero said as he pointed a finger at the face of Midoriya. An action that immediately rubbed the verdant teen the wrong way. "I was hoping to get the chance to speak with you."

"Me?" Midoriya tilted his head after this. What did Endeavor of all people want to speak with him for?

"Yes, you managed to best my son in the first round." You could practically hear the annoyance in the man's voice as the words left his mouth. "That child is going through a bit of a rebellious stage at the moment, but that shouldn't take away from your victory. I've been watching some of the highlights from the previous events and I have to say that you've impressed me."

"T-thank y-you, sir." Midoriya slightly stuttered out. Getting praise from the number two hero of all people certainly wasn't what he was expecting.

"You're still not as powerful as my Shouto, but you have potential. In fact, you remind me a bit of that annoying brat, Tornado." He continued. This was enough for Midoriya to look the man in the eye. However when he did, he couldn't help but notice something.

He had seen that look too many times before. It was the look of pure and utter arrogance. It wasn't a secret that Endeavor wasn't the nicest guy around, but the borderline conceited snarl on his face definitely didn't sit well with him. It was painfully obvious to Midoriya that the man was exactly the kind of person that he didn't like.

"I'll be putting in an offer for you to internship at my agency in the coming weeks. You'd do well to accept it."

Midoriya decided to do the smart thing and hold his tongue while giving the man a polite bow. "Thank you for your consideration, sir."

"Indeed." Endeavor simply nodded as he turned around. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go find my son."

With that, the flame hero made his exit. Leaving Midoriya with a weird feeling in his gut. _'I guess Endeavor really is just another one of them after all.'_

* * *

**"Alright listeners, it's time for the first match of the second round!"** Present Mic yelled into the microphone. **"First up, with a hero pedigree that would put most others to shame. He's a speed demon ready to sprint his way to victory. The vice-representative for the hero course's class 1-A. Make some noise for Tenya Iida!"**

'_I remember briefly crossing paths with Midoriya-san during the entrance exam. I'll have to use my top speed if I'm going to avoid his telekinesis. Tensei is watching so I need to make sure I put on a good show for him.'_ The engine quirk user thought as he entered the ring.

"**And his opponent. He's being laying low up until now, but with his upset victory in the first round he's sure to be on everyone's radar. Class 1-B's resident Flyboy, Izuku Midoriya!"**

"Did he seriously just call him, "Flyboy"? Oh man, that's great!" Tokage couldn't help but giggle at her classmate's new moniker.

'_Iida-san's speed is top notch. I'll have to take to the air again if I want to win this. He's just too fast.'_ Midoriya told himself.

"Let the match, begin!" The R-Rated heroine shouted with a wave of her whip.

Having already decided that a prolonged fight would not be to his advantage, Iida immediately activated his quirk at maximum power and sprinted towards Midoriya. While at the same time, the '_telekinesis'_ user lifted himself off the ground.

What the green haired boy wasn't expecting however was for Iida to immediately jump into the air and ready his right leg to deliver a devastating kick. Somehow, Midoriya was able to recognize this in time and ascended further into the sky just out of his reach. Narrowly avoiding what was sure to be a concussion if that attack managed to make contact.

'_That was my only chance!'_ Iida clenched his jaw after dropping back onto the ground. What happened next was pretty much what everyone expected. Midoriya simply used his powers to levitate Iida into the air and out of the ring. Securing himself a spot in the semi-finals.

"Tenya Iida is out of bounds. Izuku Midoriya is the winner!" Midnight declared to a roaring crowd.

"That was a fine showing, Midoriya-san. Your battle prowess and quirk are truly formidable." The vice-rep of 1-A said with a low bow. A gesture that Midoriya was quick to return.

"You did well yourself, Iida-san. I apologize for ending thing so quickly."

"Please, don't worry yourself over it."

"Oh my, such youthful vigor!" Midnight cooed at the gentlemanly exchange between the two boys.

* * *

Back in the 1-A booth, the hero course students were giving their thoughts on the match.

"This guy took out Iida-kun too, huh?"

"I'd hate to say it, but the only person that stands a chance of beating him is probably Bakugou."

At the other end of the section, Yaoyorozu noticed the short smile on Uraraka's face. The brunette was good friends with their vice-rep from what she had seen, so it was odd seeing her react in such a way. "Is something troubling you, Uraraka-chan?"

"Oh n-no…" The brunette waved off. "I just thought that Iida-kun would stand more of a chance against Midoriya-san."

"Yes, this boy from 1-B seems to be quite the fighter. And his quirk gives him a major advantage over everyone else." The raven haired teen agreed.

"That's right!" A voice suddenly interjected. The entirety of their class turned their attention towards the dividing wall where Neito Monoma was giving them what was possibly the most smug grin they had ever seen. "Midoriya-kun is truly one to be feared. You 1-A jerks should've paid more attention to your competition. Just you wait until the rest of our class mops the floor with you!"

"Hey, you're that blonde haired guy from earlier!" Ashido pointed an accusatory finger at him.

"Well, if it isn't the girl who gave u- ack!" Monoma was cut off by Kendou chopping him in the back of the neck. Knocking the blonde boy out instantly. As she took the time to pick up Monoma's limp body from over the divider wall, she was met with the curious looks of the students of class 1-A. It was the first time that the orange haired girl had interacted with their class, minus Iida and Yaoyorozu. And she was not about to let Monoma of all people ruin their image.

"Sorry about him guys. He's kind of crazy." The _'big fist'_ user apologized to the other students.

"Oh, Kendou-san. Hello." Yaoyorozu greeted the girl.

"Hey."

"Please tell me that everyone in your class isn't like that."

"Oh, definitely not." Tokage interjected as she took up a spot next to Kendou. "I know our classes are supposed to be rivals and all that, but Monoma is a bit of a special case. To be honest, I think he might have rabies."

"Tokage-san, it's nice seeing again."

"You know her?" The girl with purple hair and peculiar earlobes asked.

"We took the recommendations exam together." Yaoyorozu explained.

"Neat, gero."

There were some interesting looking characters in 1-A based on first impressions. There was the masked guy with six arms and another student that looked as though his head was made of rocks. Then again, with guys like Bondo and Fukidashi walking around, people probably thought the same thing about her class.

"We'll be sure to keep Monoma here on a tight leash, so don't worry about him. He thinks you guys are all arrogant assholes."

"That's ironic."

"So, what's the deal with this Midoriya guy?" Kirishima asked, curious about the green haired boy. "He took out two of the strongest guys in our class and Bakugou seems to have a bone to pick with him."

"If anything, your classmate seems to be the one with the issue." Tokage retorted.

"I don't understand." A floating set of clothes said.

"I'm guessing they have history or something. He pretty much attacked him in the hallway a couple of weeks ago."

"Is that what all that yelling was about? I thought Bakugou was just having another temper tantrum."

"Well, the two of them will probably be going against each other in the semi-finals. Hopefully things don't get too out of hand."

"I wouldn't worry too much about it, Moptop is pretty level headed. I mean, you have to be to take out the son of Endeavor and Ingenium's brother, right?" Tokage joked.

"Speaking of which, has anyone heard from Todoroki? He hasn't been back ever since his match." Kaminari looked around.

"He's probably just licking his wounds. Or brooding, whichever one." Ojiro shrugged.

"Well, I hope he's doing well. He shouldn't let one loss get to him." Kendou stated before backing away from the wall. "We'll talk to you guys later."

"Indeed." The raven haired teen nodded.

* * *

The second match pitted Shiozaki against Bakugou. Unfortunately for the vine haired girl, the tables were turned on her from her last match. With the obvious mismatch when it came to quirks, it was practically childsplay for the boy the blow away nearly all of her vines. The match was over in less than a minute and Bakugou had secured himself a spot in the semi-finals.

'_Shiozaki-san is good, but she just drew the short straw.'_ Midoriya thought to himself while letting out a sigh. Apparently the universe wasn't as kind to him as he had hoped.

"Are you okay, Midoriya-kun?" Yanagi asked in her usually stoic tone.

"Uh y-yes, I'm great." He reassured her.

"Setsuna's up next. I hope she can beat this Shinsou guy." Kendou stated in a worried tone. "I wasn't able to give any advice on how this guy's quirk works."

"Shinsou-san has power to take over brains, correct?" Tsunotori wondered.

"It appears so." Said Monoma, who only recently regained consciousness. "His last match was over so quickly that I didn't even get a chance to see what he did."

"Setsuna will be fine. I'm sure she's already picked out a way to handle this douchebag."

* * *

"**Alright party people, it's time for the third match of the quarterfinals!"**

"**Yet another student who's made a splash onto the scene. This mystery man has everyone on their toes. From the general studies department's Class 1-C, please make some noise for Hitoshi Shinsou!"**

The crowd began cheering for the tournament underdog, but the 1-C section made no attempt to hide their support.

"**And his opponent, frankly her quirk gives me the heebie-jeebies. The vice representative for Class 1-B, Setsuna Tokage!"**

The green haired girl was too focused to let her teacher's less than stellar introduction get to her. Although she wasn't sure about what this purple haired insomnia case could do, she knew that he had some sort of mind control power. The problem was that she didn't know what conditions had to be met for him to activate it. Based on his last round, it obviously worked at a distance. So she needed to be careful.

"Y'know...I'm jealous of someone like you. You have all this power and you got fast-tracked into the hero course. Did you even have to work for your spot?!" The boy taunted her in a smug tone.

"Save the banter for _after_ you lose the match!" She shot back almost instantly, more out of reaction than anything else.

"Why would I do that when I've already won?" Shinsou gave her a smug grin.

"Let the next match, begin!" Midnight announced with a dramatic wave.

Immediately, Tokage split herself up and sent her head flying towards the sky. She was pretty much gambling on keeping herself out of his range. But it was the best she could do in this situation. Deciding to play it safe, she sent an arm towards him but the boy was able to move out the way. Just barely. The girl was about to send another arm at him but noticed how his face twisted into in almost manic grin.

"What are you smi-" The moment the words came out of her mouth, Tokage felt her entire body lock up. Her muscles tensed and it felt as if someone put her entire brain in a pot of freezing water. The only thing she could get her mind to focus on was her opponent's voice. _'What the hell just happened? I can't move any of my pieces.'_

"I guess that recommendation was all for show. I'm not surprised though, the rest of your buddies went out just as easily." The boy taunted again. "Now, do me a favor and put one of your feet passed the boundary line."

Against her will, Tokage followed the boy's command her set her leg down outside of the ring. There was a silence amongst the crowd as everyone waited for the verdict from Midnight. Who herself had to think about it for a second. "Setsuna Tokage is out of bounds. Hitoshi Shinsou advances!"

The moment the words came out of her mouth, Tokage felt herself regain control of her body and immediately pieced herself back together. Once she was done, she shot a glare back at her opponent. "What did you just do?"

"It's a trade secret." He said with yet another smug grin before walking off. Leaving the girl completely confused about what just transpired.

Something wasn't right. One second she was in complete control, the next she wasn't. However this guy's quirk worked, it was powerful. Deciding that she wouldn't linger on it any further, Tokage picked up what was left of her pride and made her way back to her classmates. Still completely confused on this whole ordeal.

* * *

Within a few minutes, the girl was back in the 1-B booth and was met with Tetsutetsu throwing an arm over her shoulder. "Damn, I thought for sure that you were going to beat that asshole!"

"That guy's quirk is insane. I don't even know how he got me."

"It was the same for us." Shiozaki pointed to herself and Tetsutetsu. "Shinsou-san's mind control isn't easy to figure out."

"You got that right."

While his classmates were discussing the previous match, Midoriya's mind was running a mile a minute. Shinsou's mind control ability was definitely top notch. The further he thought about the boy's last two matches, the more confused he got. There had to be some kind of trigger that needed to be met for him to use it. It couldn't have been an area of effect type quirk, otherwise he would've just taken control of the entire field during the cavalry battle. Maybe he could only control one person at a time? No that wasn't it. He had his entire team under his control in the last event. The verdant teen was brought out of his mental rambling when Tokage sat down in the seat next to him.

"Man…" The girl said with a slight grin. "I couldn't even make it past the second round. I guess I won't be seeing you in the finals then, huh?"

"Y-you still did great out there, Tokage-san." He told her sincerely.

"You're so sweet, do you mind being my shoulder to cry on? Or y'know...I could lay my head on your lap."

"I-I-I…" He stuttered out as his face quickly adopted a shade of red.

"Alright, now I feel better." She said with a not-so-subtle laugh. "Getting a reaction out of you is just what the doctor ordered!"

"Oh..."

"Tell you what, if you _really_ want to make me feel better..." A devious smirk quickly formed on her face. "You can take me out on a date so I can lick my wounds later today. You can fly me somewhere nice."

"Wow, you don't waste any time. Do you?" Honenuki started laughing, only to be joined by a few others immediately after.

"That's enough!" Monoma half-shouted. "We need to start putting our heads together and come up with a strategy for Kendou-san to beat this Shinsou character. He's making our class look bad!"

"Aren't you forgetting about Yanagi?" Kamakiri asked the '_copy'_ quirk user.

"Kendou-san weighs too much for her to control. I don't want to sound impolite, but Yanagi-san doesn't really stand a chance."

***Slap!*** One of Shiozaki's vines hit the boy in the face.

"Don't be rude!" The girl scolded him.

"I'll be sure to tell Kendou that you called her fat." Awase laughed at the display.

* * *

As it turns out, Monoma had the ability to see the future. The match between Yanagi and Kendou was short. Due to the fact that Kendou outweighed the girl by a few kilograms, the grey haired teen was all but helpless in their fight. Luckily for her, the orange haired class-rep was merciful and simply picked her up and set her outside of the ring instead of going all out.

'_Alright, let's get this over with.'_ Midoriya sighed to himself as he stood up and walked towards the exit.

"Give 'em hell, Moptop!" Tokage gave him one last word of encouragement.

"T-thanks."

* * *

As he made his way up the steps, Midoriya was admittedly having a difficult time keeping his nerves in check. Across the ring, Bakugou was giving him a death glare that promised him nothing but pure agony. In his mind, he could only assume that the '_explosion'_ quirk user was furious that he had the audacity to even breathe the same air as him. And the fact that he now had an unexplained quirk was just another tally mark on his record.

The green haired boy's mind was in two places right now. On one hand, part of him still retained a slight bit of fear towards the guy who made his childhood a living hell. On the other, he knew he had no reason to be afraid of the guy. Sure Bakugou's quirk was as amazing as it had always been, but now he was more than capable of going toe-to-toe with him. Midoriya resolved himself to just end things quickly and use his telekinesis on him as soon as he was given the signal.

"There's nowhere for you to run, Deku!" The ashen blonde teen barked at him. "Once I'm done beating you to a pulp, you're going to tell me how you got that shitty quirk of yours. No one makes a fool out of me and gets away with it!"

'_Of course he thinks this is all about him.'_

* * *

In the student section you could practically feel the tension radiating off the two competitors. Tokage found herself a bit worried about her classmate, but quickly set that aside. Midoriya was guaranteed an easy win. This was literally going to be as simple as levitating Bakugou out of the ring.

"Midoriya-san's gonna win, right?" Tsunotori asked in a slightly nervous tone. She had faith in the guy, but he was going up against someone who could blow things up with a flick of the wrist.

"He'll be fine." Honenuki reassured her horned classmate.

* * *

**"Our first match of the semi-finals is going to feature two of the top dogs of the hero course. Both of these boys are heavy favorites to win it all, but only one of them can make it to the next round!"**

**"Now for our first competitor. The lean, mean, green machine from Class 1-B. He's been soaring his way into our hearts, Izuku Midoriya!"**

"Go Midoriya! Avenge me dammit!" Tetsutetsu shouted after the introduction.

**"And his opponent, sporting a face that only a mother could love. His mouth is almost as explosive as his fists, give it up for Katsuki Bakugou!"**

"C'mon Bakugou. Make our class proud!" Kirishima cheered loudly from the 1-A booth.

With his plan already in place, Midoriya activate his '_telekinesis'_ and got ready to fling his opponent out of the ring. That's all that he had to do. No more, no less.

"Let the match, begin!" Midnight shouted with a wave of her hand.

The moment the words left the R-Rated heroine's mouth, Bakugou did something unexpected. Instead of flying straight towards Midoriya, the ashen blonde aimed his hands towards the ground and blasted everything directly in front of his feet. This created a plume of smoke that completely clouded Midoriya's vision.

'_A smokescreen? I can't see him.'_ The green haired boy thought. Barely a second later, a powerful blast went off and a wall of fire made a beeline straight for him. Midoriya didn't have enough time to think and only reacted by rolling to his right. However, the teen was met with a second blast was just as strong.

With a quick moment to breath, Midoriya took to the air to get a better view of the ring. As he made his ascent, he was able to get a glance at Bakugou through the smoke. The two locked eyes for a second and he was about to use his quirk on him, but the '_explosion'_ quirk user was quick to put up another smoke screen to obstruct his vision. '_Did he already figured out that I need to see him to be able to use my quirk?'_ He wondered.

"You can't levitate what you can't see. Isn't that right you loser?!" Bakugou's voice said from the smoke cloud. Unbeknownst to Midoriya, the boy had spent a good amount of time looking up information on telekinetic quirks before the match. And the fact that he was still able to move on his own was more than enough confirmation for him.

'_Of course he'd figure it out. He's seen me fight twice already.'_ Midoriya said to himself. He should've known better than to underestimate the guy. The verdant teen quickly decided to play the waiting game and ascended further into the air. He may not be able to see his opponent, but the same was also true for him. Sooner or later he'd get his chance.

Bakugou however, wasn't having any of it. For a short moment, enough of the smoke cloud dissipated to where Midoriya could see the boy's silhouette. He stuck out his hand to grab a hold of him, but another blast went off and obstructed his view. What happened next definitely caught him by surprise.

From the middle of the smoke cloud, Bakugou used his quirk to propel himself upwards into the sky. With this window of opportunity, Midoriya yet again attempted to grab a hold of him. But the '_explosion'_ quirk user quickly sent a blast his way. Out of instinct, Midoriya moved himself to the right to avoid the attack, but doing so cost him his chance at victory. In the time it took him reorient himself, Bakugou was already back on the ground and had kicked up some more smoke.

"So you're trying to compete against me, eh Deku? You think you can beat me? It doesn't matter if you got some shitty quirk now. You're still nothing. Just trash on the side of the road! A bug I can crush whenever I want you damn loser!" Bakugou's voice shouted from the ring.

Midoriya had to bite back a tinge of anger after hearing this. He knew what the guy was trying to do. He was trying to agitate him and get him to lose focus.

"I fucking _hate _you! What made you think you could even be here, huh?! Even after all this time you still haven't fucking learned. Are you trying to humiliate me? Hiding your quirk from me and pretending your some kind of big shot!" The boy's words were followed by a few indiscriminate blast in multiple directions. At the very least, Bakugou didn't know where he was.

'_Calm down, Izuku. He's just trying to get under your skin.'_

"Maybe I should tell your loser classmates just how pathetic you really are? I bet they would love to know that you're actually just a spineless wimp. One who decided to run away from his problems instead of facing them like a man. Is that where you've been all this time? Tucked under some hole with your tail between your legs? How fitting for a worthless waste of space like you!"

Midoriya doesn't really know why, but something in his mind snapped after hearing that. Actually, he does know why. Because it wasn't too far from the truth. But there was something about hearing those words come out of Bakugou's mouth that just made it an even more bitter pill to swallow.

Midoriya wasn't someone who had ever learned how to process anger very well. Or even at all. He had always experienced anger in small spurts, but he usually forced those feelings downs as soon as they came up. Heroes never let their emotions get the better of them after all. But there was just something about what Bakugou said that struck a chord in him that he didn't even know he had.

Everyone in the stadium watched as the boy visibly relaxed his body in mid-air. For a moment, he was sent back in time and years of his life flashed across his mind. The bullying, the beatings, the apathetic looks, the burned clothes and bruises. All of that contributed to what was probably going to be a major mistake further down the road.

All of a sudden, the boy's mind went clear. It was as if everything in the world suddenly didn't matter.

Midoriya turned his gaze back down to the dissipating cloud of smoke and the opportunity that he had been waiting on presented itself on a silver platter. It was quick, only for a second, but he got a glance at his opponent. More accurately, Bakugou's completely exposed back.

"Come down here and face me you motherfuck- ack!" Bakugou's tirade was cut off when he felt something wrap around his throat. The boy reached his hands up to deal with what was now constricting his airflow, but there was one problem...nothing was there. The next thing the '_explosion'_ quirk user felt was his body being lifted off of the ground and rotate nearly a full 180 degrees before being forced out of cloud.

The boy managed to look up. And when he did, he admittedly felt a tinge of something that he had experienced only once before. There in the air was Midoriya, with an arm extended towards him and his hand mimicking the shape of a vice-grip. What was more unnerving was the expression of absolute calm on the boy's face.

Bakugou absentmindedly tried to talk but that only worsened his current predicament. His throat was being crushed, he was losing air fast and he could hear the blood rushing through his head. It was at this moment that ashen blonde teen finally realized what he was feeling. It was fear. Fear brought on by someone that he should've had no problem putting in their place. The '_explosion'_ quirk user looked up once again towards his foe and tried to figure a way to get himself out of this before he passed out.

On the flip side, Midoriya's mind had gone blank. All of the emotions that he was feeling had bubbled over and he wasn't thinking straight. It was only when he looked into Bakugou's bloodshot and bulging eyes that he finally came to his senses.

What was he doing? What in the actual hell was he doing? He was using his quirk to cause harm to another student.

Immediately the boy released his hold and Bakugou hit the ground with a thud, only for the boy to immediately suck in as much oxygen as he could through his mouth.

In the air, Midoriya's mind was racing. His head was throbbing, his heart was ready to leap out of his chest and he could feel himself ready to throw up at a moment's notice. Without a second thought, the green haired teen lowered himself to the ground and quickly turned on his heels. Not even caring that he technically just lost the fight. His brain was still foggy and he needed to find a bathroom quick before he spilled his guts all over the place.

"Uh...Izuku Midoriya has forfeited. Katsuki Bakugou is the winner." Midnight said in a confused tone as she watched the boy leave without a word.

Back with Bakugou, once the words finally hit his ears he immediately looked up to see Midoriya retreating into the tunnel. His mind was also processing thing at lightning speed.

He just gave up. That useless loser just gave up in the middle of the fight. Useless fucking Deku just forfeited the match when he was about to win. Bakugou was having a hard time coming to terms with something so ludacris. Did Deku of all people think that he was so weak that he needed his pity? Was this his way of sending a message? If it wasn't for the fact that his throat was still in pain he would've shouted at the boy before he disappeared into the tunnel.

One thing was certain in Katsuki Bakugou's mind at that very moment. Deku was going to pay for making a fool out of him.

* * *

In the 1-B section, the students let the initial shock of what they just witnessed wash over them.

"Damn…" Awase simply said.

"Dude, Midoriya's...intense." Tsuburaba followed up.

It took Tokage a second to shake herself off before speaking up. "Were any of you able to hear what Bakugou said to him? Even though he was yelling, I could barely make out what he was saying."

"All I was able to make out was something about Midoriya-kun being a wimp." Yanagi answered in her usual dry tone.

"I think it's safe to say that is definitely _not_ the case." Kamakiri commented.

Without warning, Tokage stood up from her seat and went straight for the exit. Something was definitely wrong, she could feel it. The entire time during their fight Bakugou was the only one talking. Which means that he must've said something outrageous to get Midoriya to choke him out on national television like that.

"Where are you going?" Tetsutetsu asked.

"I'm going to go find Moptop and see if he's okay."

"Do you want us to come with you?" Shiozaki looked to the girl. She herself was worried about her classmate's well being. The boy looked very distressed as he left the ring.

"No...I think I should go by myself. We'll be back in a bit." She waved her off. "Can you guys _not_ be a bunch of asshole when we do?"

Everyone in the booth nodded in agreement.

* * *

_~Blizzard Hero Agency, Saitama Prefecture.~_

"Well shit…" Ozehana said in a slightly bewildered tone. "This Midoriya dude is one bad motherfucker. That Bakugou kid must've said something crazy to him in all that smoke. I wish they had microphones inside the ring."

To her right, Fubuki's eyes lingered on television screen. The woman had been silent since the match ended. "Interesting."

"What's up?"

"That was a "_force choke"_." The green haired woman simply answered.

"A what?" Ozehana gave her an inquisitive look.

"A _very_ difficult move to pull off." She began explaining. "Very few people with a quirk like mine can do it without snapping a person's neck. It takes a ridiculous amount of precision and control. The only people I know who can do it safely are myself and my sister."

"So...are you still going to take him on as an intern?"

"Of course I am. Like I said before, you don't come across talent like that very often."

* * *

In a seedy bar in the bowels of Kamino Ward, a young man with dry skin and sky blue hair was grinning at the television screen in front of him.

"Kurogiri…" He said in a raspy voice to a well dressed, human-shaped cloud of mist. "I want him!"

"The boy does seem to possess an affinity for the wicked." The man now identified as Kurogiri responded before turning his attention to the other television monitor on the back wall. "What do you think, Master?"

"I think that Tomura has a _wonderful_ eye for talent." A sinister voice stated from behind the screen. Although neither of the two men in the bar could see it. The man behind the television was very pleased at this turn of events.

* * *

A few minutes went by as Tokage made her way down to the waiting rooms. She was a bit sad that she was probably going to miss Kendou's match, but there were more important things to worry about right now. About halfway down the hall, she noticed a cracked door on her left. The girl let out a sigh before opening it and was met with the sight of Midoriya sitting in one of the chairs with his head in his hands. It didn't take a genius to see that the boy wasn't in the best of moods right now. And part of her knew that she should probably leave him alone. But the other part won out.

"You okay, Moptop?" She asked in a delicate tone.

"Tokage-san?" Midoriya looked up at her. He was about to say something else, but the girl held up her hand to cut him off.

"Before you say anything, everyone in the class heard that dude yelling at you. We couldn't hear exactly what he was saying , but it must've been pretty bad if it made _you_ of all people lose your cool."

"I'm sorry." He apologized, more out of habit than anything else.

"What are you apologizing to me for?"

The boy decided to stay silent instead of giving her an answer. The two remained in that position for a few seconds before the girl took the open seat across the table from him.

"So...I know this is none of my business." Tokage started. "But what's the deal between you and that Bakugou guy? He seems to hate you, like a lot."

"It's...complicated…" He answered her in a slightly dejected tone.

"I wouldn't doubt it. Look, if you don't want to tell anyone, that's fine. But it's not good to bottle things up if they're bothering you."

"Yeah...I know."

The silence between them lingered for another two minutes before Tokage decided to do something about it. It probably wasn't good for the guy to be by himself right now. So it was her job to try to cheer up her friend. "Alright, that's enough sulking! Let's go!" She said while standing up.

"Go where?"

"First, to that smoothie stand near the cafeteria. Then back to the class. Itsuka's match is about to start and we need to be there to cheer her on."

"Oh…" He simply said. The boy knew that he probably shouldn't be left alone right now. But a part of him had more than enough reason to be nervous about facing the rest of the class. He didn't really know what they thought of him before, and no doubt their opinion of him just worsened. "A-actually, I'd rather just stay here for a few more minutes."

"That's fine." The girl responded as she sat back down. Honestly, she should've known better than to try and force him to return to their group so quickly. But she wasn't really experienced in this kind of thing. The two remained there for a few minutes before Midoriya finally calmed himself down enough to be able to go back to his classmates.

Thankfully for the green haired boy, no one pressed him about what happened during his match. It was pretty obvious to them that Bakugou had to have said something pretty extreme during their fight. But what that was exactly was none of their business. Instead, the students of 1-B decided to cheer on their class rep.

* * *

The second semi-final match between Kendou and Shinsou was a bit of a disappointment for the students of Class 1-B. Once again, Shinsou recorded another effortless victory after Kendou forfeited her match against her will. As expected, the girl was pretty upset about falling victim to this guy's quirk for a second time. But there was nothing that she could do about it. And with that, every member of Class 1-B was out of the tournament.

"I think I've finally figured out this guy's quirk." Monoma spoke up.

"You think so?"

"Well spill man, what the hell is this guy's deal?" A now very curious Tetsutetsu asked.

"I think it's voice activated." He started. "In every one of his matches, he said something to his opponent before they began. It's a shot in the dark. But if that's the criteria for him to use his quirk, it's a smart way to do it without tipping anyone off."

'_I think he's right.'_ Midoriya silently agreed.

"Damn! If only we knew that before the start of the tournament we could've put him down. The guy's built like a twig. I bet he'd go down with one good punch."

"Well there's nothing we can do about it now." Tokage shrugged. "At least Moptop and Itsuka tied for third place."

"I'm calling it now. Bakugou's gonna win." Honenuki flatly stated. No one else found enough reason to disagree.

* * *

The final match of the tournament went just like Honenuki predicted.

Upon entering the ring, Midoriya noticed the absolutely furious aura surrounding Bakugou. The students of 1-B watched as Shinsou tried another attempt at taunting the boy from 1-A. But you could see the nervous sweat form on the purpled haired boy's face when he didn't respond. No one could tell if Bakugou had figured out the boy's quirk, or if he was just too angry to talk. But it became apparent that Monoma's assumption might have some merit.

The match started and ended with Bakugou blasting the general studies student out of the ring with one decisive attack. Simply put, Shinsou didn't even stand a chance.

* * *

In no time, Midoriya and Kendou were ushered to the podium to accept their third place medals. Although both students were satisfied with their placement, there was still a lingering sense of disappointment in the air. Kendou was kicking herself for falling prey to her opponents quirk twice. And Midoriya was still a bit distraught with how his own match ended. Actually, the only person who seemed somewhat happy was Shinsou.

However, neither student could really focus all that well seeing as Bakugou was in the middle of throwing a fit. The boy was literally chained to a cement pillar that Cementoss had to make and his hands were bound together with some heavy metal cuffs. And his eyes were focused on nothing but Midoriya.

"Y'know, you should be the one up there." Kendou whispered to her classmate. "I heard from Setsuna and Yanagi-chan about what happened during your match."

"It's fine Kendou-san." Midoriya told the girl with a half-hearted smile.

Before the girl could respond, the voice of Midnight came on over the loudspeaker and their podiums began ascending onto the parade field. As expected, everyone was more than a bit uncomfortable seeing their new champion thrashing around in a such a state. Some of the spectators couldn't help but comment on how the boy looked like a feral animal.

"Geez Aizawa, is he always like this?" Kan asked his fellow teacher.

"More or less." The bandaged man responded.

"And you haven't done anything about it yet? The kid seems off his rocker."

"Bakugou may be rough around the edges, but he gets results when it matters. As long as he doesn't do anything egregious I don't really see a point in trying to adjust his behavior right now."

"Well that just seems irresponsible." Kan absentmindedly responded.

The night time hero quirked an exposed eyebrow at his colleague's words. "Excuse me?"

"Forgive me, that was unprofessional." The white haired man quickly apologized. "You've been doing this a lot longer than I have, so I'm sure you know how to handle these kinds of things."

"Now, let's break out the hardware!" Midnight began while motioning towards the sky. "Of course, there's only one man worthy of distributing these awards!"

Out of nowhere, the sound of boisterous laughter caught everyone's attention. And like a muscle bound angel descending from the heavens, All Might made his grand entrance. Unfortunately for the number one hero, Midnight completely screwed up his introduction. The "R-Rated" heroine quickly apologized by holding her hands up in front of her face. The blonde haired man wasted no time in securing the medals and making his way over to the podium. And his first stop were the two third place finalists from 1-B.

"Young Kendou, congratulations. You showed great strength befitting that of a class representative."

"Thank you sensei. But to be honest, I feel like I could've done a lot better." The orange haired teen responded as the medal was placed around her neck.

"Take these experiences to heart and use them to overcome your own shortcomings. From what I've seen, a lot of students in your class look up to you."

Next up was Midoriya. As the pro hero placed the other bronze medal around his neck, he couldn't help but notice the odd gaze that the boy was giving him. Obviously this was something that he needed to address some time soon. But now was neither the time nor the place for it. Instead, he opted to keep to the script and give the boy his praise.

"Young Midoriya, you certainly made an impression on everyone here. A lot of people had you as their favorite to win the tournament. I'd like to commend you for focusing on teamwork rather than chasing the glory of being in the top spot. It's a trait that many aspiring heroes like yourself should possess."

"Thank you, sensei." The boy dryly stated as he accepted his prize. His tone of voice not sitting well with the blonde haired man at all.

Shinsou was next on the pecking order. The purple haired teen made no attempt to hide the smug grin on his face as the silver medal was given to him.

"Young Shinsou. I think I speak for everyone here when I say that you were certainly the "Cinderella story" of this tournament. Your quirk is truly impressive and you managed to make your mark on both the spectators _and_ the faculty."

"Expect to see me in your class very soon." The boy responded.

Finally, was Katsuki Bakugou. Even All Might had to take a moment to admire his colleague's handiwork. He was fairly certain that the restraints the boy was placed under were meant for highly dangerous criminals. Not a high school student. But instead of pointing that out, he decided to just roll with it. Against his better judgment, he loosened the muzzle around the boy's mouth.

"Well young Bakugou, you did exactly what you said you would in the pledge. You are true to your word."

"All Might…" Bakugou growled out towards the man. "Winning first place like this is useless. It doesn't prove that I'm the best one here! Even if the whole damn world recognizes me as the winner I refuse to accept like this!" He said before turning his attention to Midoriya. "I didn't even get a chance to face off with that half-and-half bastard. And worse, shitty Deku thinks he can get away with forfeiting our match and making me look like a fool. You hear me Deku?! I don't know what game you think you're playing, but this isn't over! You're not better than me dammit. And I will make sure that I prove it you and everyone here!"

"This guy is psychotic." Yanagi whispered to Tokage who quickly nodded her head in agreement.

'_We should probably end this sooner rather than later.'_ All Might thought before letting out a subtle cough. The pro hero attempted to place the gold medal around the boy's neck but he refused to take it. Instead, he decided to just put it between his teeth and be done with it.

With one final speech to the crowd, and a massive miscue that ended up being replayed for the rest of the day, All Might gave a close to the festivities. Giving the students the chance to return to their class and wait to be dismissed.

* * *

Back at the 1-B classroom, Kan was giving his students the final word of the day.

"Congratulations on your performance today. Seeing as the second and third year sports festivals will span the rest of the week, the principal has decided to give you a four day weekend."

"Hell yeah!" Awase and Kaibara high fived each other at this news.

"We've already received quite a few offers from pro's who want to recruit some of you. But you'll have to wait until Monday to receive the final draft. Until then, use this time to recuperate and reflect on your performance today. Have fun."

Without missing a beat, the students began making their way home. Midoriya didn't even get a chance to make it out of the front gate before he felt a tap on his shoulder. The boy turned around only to see Tokage standing with her hands behind her back and a sharp grin on her face.

"So Moptop, we still on for this weekend?"

"Huh?"

"We're hanging out this weekend. Don't you remember?"

"O-oh uh…"

"Oh no, did you not want to spend some time with me?" The girl teased as placed her hand over her chest in mock offense. "You're gonna leave a beautiful young lady such as myself to weather this four day weekend all by lonesome? How shameful, Izuku Midoriya."

"I-I don't really know h-how to respond to that."

"You can respond by giving me and answer." She shot back jokingly. "I mean, I was really looking forward to spending some time together. But if you're too good for me, I understand~."

Midoriya was about to say something, but his mind flashed back to a conversation that he had with his mother a few days ago. Actually, it was a conversation that the two of them had more than a few times ever since school started. **"Izuku...I know this is still a still a sore topic for you, but can you at least try and make some friends this year?"**

The boy looked at his classmate and pondered for a moment. He really had no clue if the girl was genuine about her request or not. But his mother wouldn't have been happy if she ever found out that he was actively avoiding interacting with other students. On top of that, Tokage had only been nice to him so far, so denying her request would've come off as rude. The duo stood in silence for a few more seconds before Midoriya let out a sigh.

"I'll be in Saitama this Friday. I'm...busy in the morning, but I'll be free that afternoon." He whispered out with a tinge of redness on his cheeks.

Tokage's face almost lit up with excitement after hearing that. "Awesome! It's a "not-date"!"

"A w-w-what?"

"A "not-date"." She repeated. "Y'know...a totally platonic outing between buddies that's totally not a date but technically is."

The green haired boy's redness intensified after hearing this. Which only caused the girl burst out in a fit of laughter. Apparently getting him flustered was some sort of hobby for her.

"Well, I look forward to seeing you this weekend Moptop. The two of us are going to have a blast!" She gave him one final pat on the shoulder before heading off towards the train station. Leaving Midoriya to process her previous statement.

'_What did I just get myself into?'_


	10. Totally Not A Date

While the rest of her classmates were surely enjoying a nice breakfast with their families, Tokage woke up Friday morning to an empty house. As it turns out, her father had to pull another all-nighter at his lab and wouldn't be back until later that evening. This would make two days in a row that the man was gone before she even got out of bed that morning. But as much as she wanted to be upset about the stunning lack of human interaction outside of school. She knew that his work was important and that she didn't really have a right to be angry.

Things had been even more quiet in the Tokage house ever since her sister left for school. But the fact that she no longer had to share a bathroom with the woman was one of the few benefits her absence brought.

As the green haired girl got to work making herself breakfast, she couldn't help but look forward to her afternoon outing with her classmate. Normally she would head over to Tetsutetsu's house and pester the silver haired boy until he finally gave in and went out with her. But seeing as he was away visiting family, she really had nothing else to do.

Once she was done preparing her eggs, rice and leftover salmon, the green haired girl plopped down onto her couch and turned on the television. The added benefit of being home on a weekday meant that she got to enjoy some of the early morning documentaries on the nature channel. And as luck would have it, there was a special on the late cretaceous period.

Tokage doesn't really know what sparked her fascination with all things reptile in her childhood. But she always found herself entranced at learning new and exciting things about all different types of lizards and creepy-crawlies. If she was being honest, if the girl wasn't so dead set on becoming a hero she could definitely see herself becoming a herpetologist in the future.

Halfway through the program, Tokage decided to pull out her phone and shoot a text over to her fellow green haired companion to see if they were still on for today.

* * *

T-Rex: What time do you want to meet up?

Rabbit: Whenever is good for you.

T-Rex: 1400?

Rabbit: That's fine.

T-Rex: Sweet! How about we meet up at the shopping center?

Rabbit: That's fine.

T-Rex: Cool! I'll be sure to wear something cute so people get jealous when they see us together.

Rabbit: That's fine….

T-Rex: You really need to work on your texting skills.

Rabbit: I'm sorry.

T-Rex: And that bad habit of yours.

Rabbit: I know.

T-Rex: Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?

Rabbit: Sure.

T-Rex: Why is your icon a rabbit? Is that your favorite animal?

Rabbit: I just picked it random.

T-Rex: Really? That's kind of lame.

T-Rex: I was expecting something more profound.

Rabbit: I don't know how to respond to that.

T-Rex: You're too cute. I'll see you later. Meet me at the water fountain next to the food court. I'm really looking forward to our "not-date".

Rabbit: I'll see you later, Tokage-san.

* * *

Four hours later, Tokage found herself waiting in front of the aforementioned water fountain. It was ten minutes passed their scheduled meet up time and Midoriya was nowhere to be found. The boy seemed like the punctual type so she definitely found it odd that he was running late. And the fact that he didn't send her a warning text was kind of annoying. But she assumed that he had a good reason for his tardiness.

The girl was dressed in a simple black t-shirt with a picture of a velociraptor on it, some green shorts and a pair of black sneakers. It was a lot more casual than what she was used to wearing, but the springtime heat was pretty unforgiving when it came to fashion. How Kayama managed to wear such heavy sweaters and clothing all year round when she was off duty was a complete mystery to her. But when people recognize you as the "R-Rated Heroine", it made sense to cover up to avoid getting spotted.

Another few minutes passed before a familiar voice called out to her from across the walkway. The girl turned her attention to where the sound came from and was met with the sight of her partner for the day.

The boy in question was dressed in the same red sneakers that he wore to school everyday, some khaki shorts and a white t-shirt with the word "business casual" written in katakana letters on it. Evidently, his "Joe Smoe" persona didn't just apply to his hero uniform. However, the one weird part of his ensemble that Tokage was curious about was the backpack that he was currently carrying with him.

"Hey Moptop, what took you so long? I was beginning to think that you stood me up." The girl greeted with a kind smile.

"I-I'm sorry, I kinda lost track of time." Midoriya quickly apologized.

"No worries." She casually waved off. "So...what's with the bag? Are we studying today or something?"

"Oh uh, n-no. I was...helping at the orphanage again."

"Oh yeah, you did say something about that the last time we hung out. So what do you do over there anyway?"

"I pretty much just help tutor some of the kids there. It's really nothing major."

"Yup, you're definitely made of puppies and sunshine." The girl joked before wrapping her arms around his and leading him to the food court.

"W-where a-a-are we going?" A now red faced Midoriya nervously asked while trying not to focus on the sudden contact.

"First to go get some food, then to enjoy the rest of our "not-date"." She said nonchalantly while pointing over to a small pastry stand a bit further down the walk way.

Within minutes the duo were sitting down and enjoying their food. Both teens ended up settling on splitting an order of strawberry daifuku. Midoriya wasn't really one for sweets, but he had to admit that the treat was rather refreshing.

"So Moptop, tell me a bit about yourself." Tokage started after taking a sip of her green tea. "I think out of everyone in class, you're the one people know the least about. Well, aside from Kodai."

"T-there's really n-not much to tell." The boy slightly stuttered out. If he was being honest, he preferred it if classmates didn't know too much about him. The last thing he needed was for certain things to come back to light. "I'm actually a pretty boring person."

"Yeah, I doubt that." The girl retorted.

"Huh?"

"C'mon dude, you're like the strongest one in our class. We all know that you're pretty smart, you speak damn near perfect English and you spend your free time helping out the less fortunate. _Boring_ isn't really a good word for you."

"W-what about you Tokage-san?" The '_telekinesis'_ user deflected.

"Well, what would you like to know?" Tokage leaned back in her seat with a grin. "Ask away, I'm an open book."

"Oh, well…." Midoriya hesitated for a moment while he racked his brain. Is this what normal conversations were like? He really had no frame of reference when it came to sort of thing. What was a good question that didn't come of as rude or too invasive? Maybe he just stick with something simple. "What do you like to do for fun?"

"Eat, watch documentaries, lay in bed, learn about dinosaurs. Y'know, stuff like that."

"Oh…" The boy nodded.

"Alright, my turn!" The girl cheered while clapping her hands together. "What's your favorite food?"

"Katsudon." He replied without missing a beat.

"Oh, that's a good one. I more of a yakitori girl."

"That's nice."

"Okay, do you mind if I ask you something else even if it's your turn?"

"S-sure."

"Have you always been such a loner?" She inquired.

Even though it was an innocent question, Midoriya couldn't help but pause after hearing it. Sure, it was no secret that he wasn't the most social person in the world. But hearing it said out loud was kind of weird.

"I mean, you don't really talk a lot and this is pretty much the first time that you've chosen to hang out with someone outside of class. If you don't count that time during the first week of school." The girl continued before taking a quick bite of her daifuku. "So what gives? Have you always been such a lone wolf?"

"I-I guess you could say that." He nervously responded.

A silence fell over them as Tokage gave him a curious look. Obviously there was something more to it than just not being a people person. But it was pretty clear to the girl that they were stepping into uncomfortable territory for the boy. So instead of pressing on any further, she decided to drop the subject altogether. "Alright Moptop, onto our next destination!"

"And where is that?"

* * *

Of all the places that Midoriya expected his classmate to take him, a museum was definitely not on the list. The boy had never been to one in person before, so this was going to be an entirely new experience for him.

"You're gonna love this place." Tokage told him with a smile.

"Why is that?"

"Because they just opened up a new exhibit on the Jurassic period. Plus, students get in for seventy-five percent off so it's super cheap!"

"Wow." Was all the boy managed to say before Tokage once again grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside.

Overall, the boy rather enjoyed this impromptu field trip. He'll be the first to admit that he knew next to nothing about dinosaurs. So learning all of this new information about them was rather fun. However, what he did find interesting was his partner's seemingly endless knowledge about the subject. It didn't even take five minutes before the girl started listing off random facts about some of the displays and skeletons that lined the inside of the exhibit. And it became very apparent that this was some sort of hobby of hers.

"...and this is the stegosaurus. It's probably the most recognizable creature from this time period aside from the brachiosaurus. Contrary to popular belief, they were actually herbivores." The girl explained while pointing to the massive skeleton in front of them.

"You sure do know a lot about this stuff, Tokage-san."

"Sure do! I've liked learning about this stuff ever since I was a kid."

Midoriya took this time to ask the girl a question that had been on his mind for a while now. "So...does your family primarily have reptilian quirks? It seems to be a pretty big theme for you."

"No." The girl answered. "No one in my family has any of the sort that I know of. I pretty much named my quirk '_lizard tail splitter'_ because some type of reptiles can regrow lost limbs. Kind of like me."

"That makes sense."

"What about you?" The girl inquired. "Not to sound rude, but '_telekinesis'_ is a pretty bland name. Even Yanagi calls her's '_poltergeist'_ despite it being the same thing."

Midoriya couldn't help but blush at the girl's comment. He was never the most creative when it came to naming things. And even he would have to admit that calling his quirk '_telekinesis'_ was rather boring. "It just seemed appropriate."

"Makes sense." Tokage gave him a nonchalant shrug.

Another thirty minutes went by before the duo decided to call it quits on the exhibit. It was getting rather late, and even though they were off from school it was best to get a headstart on avoiding the madness that came with a Friday evening. Unlike U.A., most schools were getting out at about this time.

The two students ended up rounding back towards the shopping center before parting ways. Overall, Tokage enjoyed the midday outing with her classmate and she was thankful that she had something to do other than wasting away on her couch. Granted, she did want to spend a bit more time hanging out with him, but it wasn't a good idea to push her luck.

"I had fun today, Moptop. We should do this again sometime."

"R-right." Midoriya blushed.

"Maybe next time we can invite the others and do a group thing."

"T-that sounds like a good idea.."

"Or...it could just be the two of us again~." Tokage wiggled her eyebrows in a suggestive manner. Causing the boy's face to darken into an even deeper shade of red. "Man, you're too easy!"

"I-I'll see you at school, Tokage-san." He replied after pulling himself together.

"You sure will!" She shot him a thumbs up before turning on her heels and making the journey back home. Leaving him to make his own way to the train station back to Musutafu.

And with that, their "not-date" came to a close.

* * *

It didn't take long for Tokage to return home. Her father wasn't due back until well after sundown so she still had to house all to herself. The girl had planned on getting a headstart on dinner and finishing up the rest of her homework. But that pretty much went out the window when she was met with the sight of her older sister sitting on the living room couch with a giant bowl of pretzels in her lap.

"What's up, runt?" The elder Tokage daughter greeted her with a lazy wave before taking another bite of her snack.

"Nee-chan?" Tokage paused while giving her a curious look. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I still technically live here, y'know." The woman shot back with a toothy grin.

Nanao Tokage, age nineteen. A woman of average height with dark green eyes and short, dark green hair styled in a "pixie cut". She's currently attending school in Tokyo in pursuit of a degree in psychology.

"I get that, but why are you here?"

"I have the next few days off from class and wanted to surprise you!" She smiled before holding up a bag of pretzels. "Also, I came to re-stock dad's supply."

"Oh…" The younger Tokage daughter gave her an unimpressed glare.

"What's with that look? What, I can't congratulate my little sister on doing well in her first ever Sports Festival? I almost skipped class to watch you fight in the tournament."

"Really?"

"Of course!" Nanao told her. "Sucks that you got put up against that dude with the brainwashing quirk. If it wasn't for him you probably would've made it to the finals."

"Yeah well, we were finally able to figure out his quirk. So if I ever have to go up against him again, I'll be more than ready."

Tokage took a moment to take off her shoes and drop herself onto the couch next to her sister. The girl couldn't help the tired sigh that escaped her mouth as she sunk into the cushions. It was only then that she realized that she had been on her feet for the last few hours.

"So where were you all day? I came back a little after noon and you were nowhere to be found." The short haired woman asked.

"I was hanging out with a buddy from school."

"Who, Tetsutetsu?"

"Nah." Tokage shook her head. "A guy in my class named Midoriya."

If Tokage was looking in her direction, she would've noticed the slight glimmer appear in Nanao's eyes at this new bit of information. "Oh, the dude with telekinesis quirk. The one that choked out that blonde kid before throwing the match."

"Yeah…"

"Watching that was pretty crazy."

"No kidding." Tokage retorted. "But if you ask me, Bakugou had it coming to him. The guy's a total douchebag."

There was a brief silence between the two before Nanao decided to lighten up the mood. Much like her aunt and sister, the woman had an affinity for taking interests in certain things. And when faced with the topic of her little sister's possible love life, she just couldn't leave that alone.

"So what, you two went out on a date or something?" The woman said with a devious smirk.

"No...it was a "not-date". Just a casual outing between two classmates." Tokage folded her arms in defiance at the obvious attempt to prod into her social life.

"Oh, so he's available then? Maybe I should ask Aunt Nemuri for his contact info. I could use a powerful young stud who can carry my luggage around while I go shopping."

"Aren't you a little too old to be hitting on high school students?"

"Hey, the age of consent _is_ thirteen. Plus, you need to grab 'em while they're young and full of potential." Nanao said with a not-so-subtle chuckle. "C'mon, be a good little sister and set me up!"

"Are you gonna be here all weekend?" The younger Tokage daughter quickly changed subjects.

"Until tomorrow night. Also, I haven't been to a family dinner in a while and I'm tired of living off ramen and scrambled eggs. What time are dad and Aunt Nemuri supposed to be here?"

"Aunt Nemuri said she'll be here in a few hours last time I texted her and dad's gonna be home late...again." The girl said in a slightly annoyed tone.

Nanao was quick to pick up on this and couldn't help the small frown that appeared on her face. She was aware that the girl wasn't exactly a fan of their father working so late all the time. But considering how demanding his job was, it was to be expected. She also knew it had to be pretty lonely around here now that she was away at school. But things like that were to be expected.

"Look Setsuna…" She placed a hand on her sister's shoulder. "I know it has to be pretty dull around here nowadays. But you can't really hold it against him."

Tokage was silent for a few seconds before letting out a sigh. "I know…. I know getting upset about it is super childish and selfish, but it would be nice for him to at least be here every once in a while. I practically live here by myself most days. I mean, I haven't even seen him since Wednesday."

"Hey, I get it." Nanao rubbed her back in a caring manner before standing up and stretching herself out. "How about after dinner the two of us vent our frustrations out over some ice cream and sappy romance movies? That usually cheers you up right?"

Tokage looked at the woman for a moment before giving her a smile. Instead of being upset about things she really couldn't control, she was going to appreciate the fact that she wasn't going to spend another night all by herself.

"Fine, just as long as it's not another one of those cheesy ones where everyone has vampirism quirks."

"Well, excuse me for having good taste!"

* * *

While the two sisters were putting the finishing touches on dinner preparations, Midoriya was just stepping back into his apartment. The boy didn't even get three steps into the door before the sound of his mother's voice caught his attention.

"Izuku, is that you sweetie?" Inko asked in a slightly worried tone.

"Yeah." He responded.

"What took you so long getting back? I know that you said that were working at the orphanage again. But you're usually never out this late."

In that moment it finally occurred to the boy that he completely forgot to tell his mother that he was going to be out longer than usual. He paused for a second before giving her an answer though. On one hand, the woman would be ecstatic to know that he was spending time with a classmate. But on the other, he didn't want to get her hopes up. So instead, he decided to just meet somewhere in the middle.

"Sorry, tutoring took a bit longer than I expected and I ended up bumping into someone from my class. Sorry I forgot to tell you." He told with a half-hearted grin.

"Oh, alright then." Inko responded. Even though she wasn't going to outright say it, the woman had a feeling that he wasn't being completely honest. Despite this, she decided to just roll with it. "You know I get worried whenever you're gone for too long. In the future can you please do a better job at letting me know where you are?"

"Sorry mom, I'll make it sure it doesn't happen again."

"Fine." The woman relented. "Well, I already finished making dinner. Your food's in the microwave whenever you get hungry."

"Thanks, I'll eat it later after I take a quick nap." He told her before disappearing into his room for the night. Leaving Inko to watch the highlights of the third year Sports Festival by herself.

* * *

**Author's Notes: Not really a whole lot to say about this chapter. Just a quick intermission between arcs. I mainly just wanted to flesh out Tokage's character a bit more and introduce her sister. We'll meet her dad and learn what his job is before the semester exams. And we'll learn why her mom isn't in the picture. It kind of ties in to the internships.**

**1\. I prefer slow burn fics, but this won't be as bad as my other one. Midoriya and Tokage will have their first real date pretty soon. You guys will just have to wait a bit longer.**

**2\. I'm also loving some of the fan theories that you guys are putting in the reviews. They bring me great joy and a lot of laughs. Don't expect the next update until this weekend, it's pretty long.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a review/comment.**


	11. Internships: Part 1

Monday couldn't come fast enough for the first years students of U.A.'s hero course. After a nice relaxing weekend they were refreshed, recharged and ready to get started on their possible internships. Everyone was excited at the possibility of receiving offers. But the future heroes were just as nervous as they were anxious.

"Welcome back. I trust that you all enjoyed your break." Kan told the students as he set down an absolutely massive stack of papers down on his desk. "I don't see a point in making you guys wait. So let's get right down to business." He continued before activating the smartboard.

_Internship Offers (Class 1-B):_

_Midoriya - 2,019_

_Kendou - 1,187_

_Shiozaki - 1,062_

_Tokage - 1,003_

_Honenuki - 894_

_Yanagi - 704_

_Tetsutetsu - 450_

_Monoma - 362_

_Shishida - 111_

_Bondo - 94_

_Tsunotori - 86_

_Awase - 26_

"The offers are spaced out relatively evenly. But those who made it further in the tournament stage got the most. The only other students who received more are in 1-A." The blood themed hero simply stated.

"Ugh...that's so not fair." Tsuburaba groaned, throwing his head back in defeat.

"Man, I didn't get any." Kamakiri followed up.

"I guess it's only natural that Midoriya-kun and Kendou-chan got the most since they both tied for third place."

"I'm surprised they didn't get more." Shoda responded.

There was a brief pause as Kan handed out the lists of offers to all of the students who received them. Midoriya took a moment to sift through thousands of names and agencies of his own stack and was definitely surprised at what he saw. The most prominent names that stuck out to him were Endeavor, Best Jeanist and the dragon heroine Ryukyu. He was almost certain that any offers that he received would've been rescinded after his match, but apparently that wasn't the case. However, one name stuck out to him the most. The Blizzard Hero Agency.

Fubuki Katsuragi, more commonly known as "Blizzard", was a well known heroine based out of Saitama Prefecture. More importantly, she was one half of the Psychic Sisters. The telekinetic heroine was pretty popular a few years ago. But that was before the sudden disappearance of her older sister, the former number four ranked heroine "Tornado". From what he knew, the woman recently restructured her agency to focus strictly on rescue and recovery operations. Subsequently, this made her one of the more prominent rescue heroes in all of Japan.

While Midoriya was going through his list of offers, Tokage was doing the same. The girl was definitely proud of herself for how many heroes she managed to impressed. And she had no idea where to even start. When it came to her list, names such as Ryukyu and Edgeshot were the first to catch her eye. Even Midnight had put in a request for her, much to her own surprise. Before the students had a chance to think about it any further, Kan's voice brought him back to reality.

"Despite these results, you'll all be interning with pros. Those of you who got offers have until tomorrow to decide where you want to go. The rest of you will be assigned a pro hero and you'll be notified in the morning." The blood themed hero informed his students. More than a few of them smiling that they were still getting a chance to do an internship.

"Awesome!"

"Now, onto the next order of business. You all have to pick out hero names."

As if she were waiting outside the door for her cue, Midnight flamboyantly bursted into the classroom and made her way to the front.

"Midnight is going to be taking point on this. To be frank, she has a better affinity for this kind of thing than I do. So she'll have final approval over what you choose."

"What you pick today could be your codename for life. So you'd better be careful, or you'd be stuck with something utterly..._indecent_." The black haired woman stated in a seductive tone that surely wasn't appropriate for a class of high school students.

It didn't take long for everyone to get down the business and start brainstorming possible hero names. More than a few students were bouncing ideas off of each other. But for the most part, everyone had already decided on what they were going to choose.

"Alright, who among you is ready to share?" Midnight asked the class.

Unexpectedly, Tokage was the first to raise her hand and make her way up to the podium. The green haired girl had no trouble picking her name because she had already decided on one a long time ago. With as much confidence as she could muster, the girl presented her submission and showed the class her whiteboard.

"Lizardy!" She smiled brightly.

"Oh I love it~!" Midnight cooed after hearing this. Unbeknownst to all the students except for Tetsutetsu, this was actually the nickname that the R-Rated heroine used to call the girl back when she was a kid.

"Yeah, it's a good one." Kendou nodded.

With the official seal of approval, Tokage made her way back to her desk and let the others get their submissions out of the way. The class spent the next ten minutes or so presenting their names. Most everyone picked something that suited their personality or their quirk, such as Tetsutetsu who went with "Real Steel". Or Kendou who ended up choosing, "Battle Fist". The only one that left everyone confused was Shishida's submission, "Gevaudan". But after a quick google search, everyone agreed that it was pretty appropriate.

The final one to make his submission was Midoriya. The verdant teen nervously made his way up the podium and gave out a bit of sigh before speaking. "Honestly, I had a pretty difficult time picking this one out. But after thinking about it for a while, it seemed appropriate for what I can do. Even if it is a bit...misleading." The boy explained before showing his classmates what he wrote.

"Skywalker." He simply said as he waited for the others to comment.

"Oh, I like it. Very fitting." Midnight nodded with a smile on her face.

"It makes logic." Tsunotori said.

"Yeah." Awase agreed. "Since you can fly it seems like the perfect name."

"I feel like I've heard that somewhere before." Fukidashi's thought bubble spelled out.

"I thought he was gonna pick something weather related like his older sisters." Honenuki joked.

With that out of the way, the students were dismissed for lunch. Before leaving, Kan once again informed them that they had until tomorrow to choose who they'll be interning under. For the students who didn't get any offers, they were going to be assigned one.

* * *

"Man, best day of class ever!" Tokage beamed as the students of 1-B made their way out of the classroom to head to the cafeteria. Feeling quite proud of herself.

"I'll say, I still can't believe that you guys got over a thousand offers. Man, you're so lucky." Tetsutetsu groaned.

"Hey, 450 offers is nothing to sneeze at Tetsutetsu. At least you got more than Monoma-san."

"I guess." The steel quirk user agreed, but still not entirely satisfied with himself. "So have you decided who you're going to intern with, Setsuna?"

"No, I'm going to have to think about it tonight. What about you guys?" She answered.

"I'm going with Gunhead." Kendou told her. "He's a battle hero so it's more of my speed. Plus I heard he has a pretty nice dojo."

"I believe I'll be going with Kamui Woods." Shiozaki was next to speak.

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"His reputation took a hit because of that whole "Sludge Villain" thing last year. Him, Mt. Lady, Backdraft and Dearth Arms had to put in some serious overtime after that."

"Yes, but he's also shown that he's repented for his folly and has done some wonderful things in the community since then. And our quirks are a good match." The vine haired girl stated.

"Still, Midoriya got over two thousand. I'm getting a headache just thinking about having to sort through all of that."

"Speaking of which…." Kendou looked around for a moment. "Where is Midoriya-kun? He always disappears during lunch."

"He said that he's not good with crowds." Tokage answered. Although, she herself wondered where the other greenette scurried off to during lunch. She hoped that after their "not-date" he would be more comfortable eating around others. But apparently that just wasn't the case.

* * *

While his classmates were enjoying their food in the school cafeteria, Midoriya was relaxing on the roof of one of the main campus buildings. Shortly after starting classes at U.A., the boy found out that students were allowed to come up here during their lunch period. As luck would have it, the place was pretty much empty besides himself and a few others that occasionally made their way up there every now and then. But he didn't mind it one bit.

The boy had grown accustomed to eating by himself ever since his days in elementary school. If he was being honest, this was one of the few times throughout the day that he could relax in between classes. Most of his time up here was spent powering through his lunch and jotting down notes in his latest hero analysis book. While the rest was spent collecting his thoughts and staring at the afternoon sky.

At the moment, he was still going over who he was going to do his internship with. The Endeavor Agency was already out of the question, so he tossed that one to the side. But the one that stuck out to him the most was the offer from Blizzard.

Logically speaking, it was the perfect place for him to go. Not only did him and Blizzard have similar quirks. She was rescue hero and very skilled at her job. Stories had been popping up over the last year about her intervening in crisis situations all over the place. And unlike a lot of female heroes nowadays, she didn't use her looks to garner attention from the hero tabloids and news sites.

The boy laid down and closed his eyes for a brief moment to further think about what he was going to do, but a bubbly female voice interrupted his train of thought.

"Yoo-hoo!" The voice called out to him. Midoriya jerked open his eyes and found himself staring into a set of sky blue orbs looking down at him.

Out of instinct, he immediately jumped up and backed into the nearby wall, Only for him to hit his head up against the concrete.

"Ow!" He groaned while clutching the back of his skull.

"You okay?" The voice asked him in a worried tone.

Once the blurriness settled, Midoriya finally looked up at who decided to intrude on his alone time. But immediately regretted it once he did. It was a girl. A girl with flawless skin, long flowing sky blue hair and eyes to match. She was casually floating about a meter off the ground and giving him a concerned look. Almost instantly, the boy's face heated up at the sight of this person and he suddenly felt his mouth go dry.

"W-who are y-you?!" He accidentally shouted while covering up his face. Mainly out of instinct but also slightly out of embarrassment.

"How's it going, Izuku Midoriya!" The girl greeted him in the same bubbly tone from form before.

"You know me?"

"Of course I do!" She smiled back. "I've actually been looking all over for you. I gave up on trying to find you and decided to come up here to look at the sky since my usual group of friends are busy with their work studies today. But low and behold, here you are on the roof of the school like your typical anime protagonist. Do you come up here all the time? Oh, did you fly up here? You know it's technically against school rules to use your quirk outside of class, right? Then again, I'm also breaking that rule since I'm using my quirk right now."

The green haired teen blinked a couple of times as he tried to process the word vomit that came out of the girl's mouth. Part of him was amazed that she could say all of that in one breath. And the other part wondered if that's how his own muttering sounded like to other people. "Who are you?" He repeated.

"Oh, I guess I haven't introduced myself yet have I?" The girl realized before floating over to him and extending her hand out. "I'm Nejire Hadou, third year. Nice to meet ya'!"

"H-hello." He greeted back before remembering what she said a moment ago. "W-why were trying to find m-me?"

"Because, I wanted to know if you were going to accept Ryukyu's internship offer or not. I asked her to send you one during the Sports Festival and she told me that she did."

"_You_...asked her?" He tilted his head in confusion. Who the hell was this girl and why did it sound like she had so much influence over the number nine heroine of all people?

"Of course I did! Ryukyu has a thing for people with flying quirks and you'd fit our group perfectly. I'm interning at her agency right now and she's been looking to take on another student. And then you pop up and blow everyone away with your moves. You have a telekinetic quirk, right? Have you always been able to fly? Ooh, how fast are you? Do you wanna have a race around the school? Can you do that thing where you bend a bunch of spoo-"

"Timeout!" Midoriya cut her off while holding his hands up in a "T" shape. "C-can you slow down, please."

"Oh, my bad." The girl giggled while literally twirling in the air. "I have a bad habit of saying whatever comes to mind."

"It's...fine."

"So anyways...have you decided on who you're going to intern with? I bet you got a ton offers. Especially after beating the son of the number two hero."

"I...still haven't decided."

"Aww, why not?" She asked him. "Are there too many to choose from?"

"K-kinda…." He awkwardly chuckled.

"Really? Well, who sent you a request? Maybe I can help you out, my little kohai. But be warned, I _am_ biased."

It was at this moment that Midoriya was trying to figure out if this was really happening or not. Here he was, on the roof of the school, with some girl who he didn't know talking his head off without a care in the world. Either he was the victim of some elaborate hazing prank by his upperclassmen, or he just had the strangest luck. In any case, he needed to get a handle on the situation before something even more strange happened.

"I'm sorry, I think we got off on the wrong foot. Can we start over?"

"No problem!" The blunette smiled before setting herself down on the ground in front of him. "Like I said before, I'm Nejire Hadou. I'm a hero course third year and I'm here to convince you to join me at Ryukyu's agency. Plus, I just wanted to get a chance to talk to you. Not a lot people have quirks that allow them to fly like I can and wanted to ask you some questions."

"Okay…." The boy said with a quick sigh. "I'm Izuku Midoriya. I'm a first year, a-also in the hero course."

"Alright! Now that we've gotten our third introduction out of the way, let's get down to business!"

"B-but-"

"So, tell me about your quirk. Is it just plain old telekinesis, or can you do other things? I love asking people about their quirks. Mine is called '_wave motion'_. I can turn my stamina into waves of energy and use them in all sorts of different ways. Besides flying, I can shoot out energy blasts from my hands and feet."

"That's sound amazing!" Midoriya blurted out before clasping his hands over his mouth. Now was probably not the time for his love of quirks to take hold of him.

"Oooh, you've got a curious mind just like I do, huh? I like you! We should hangout sometime and talk about quirks."

There were many different words that Midoriya would use to describe the girl currently sitting in front of him. Free spirited, scatterbrained, overly curious and airheaded were among the first. Obviously this girl had too much energy than she knew what to do with. But instead of pointing that out, the boy decided to answer one of her earlier questions.

"To answer your earlier question, Hadou-senpai. I think I already picked out what agency I'm going to go do my internship with." He told her. Even though it really wasn't any of the girl's business, he felt like giving her answer would help him end this conversation sooner rather than later.

"Who?" She leaned in a bit closer while waiting for him to tell her.

"S-sorry, but I'm p-pretty sure I'm going to intern at the Blizzard Agency."

"Aww man!" Hadou pouted while snapping her fingers. "I was really hoping to get you to join us. Hey, now that I think about it you and her kind of look alike. Are you two related? You both have green hair and green eyes. Oh, are you like the Psychic Sister's secret younger brother who's trying to make a name for himself without riding on their coattails?"

"N-no, I get that a lot. But we're not related."

"Oh, okay then." The said with another smile.

"I-I apologize for wasting your time and not accepting Ryukyu's offer. I know it sounds really bad to deny the chance to work with a top hero."

"Eh, no harm no foul." The blunette shrugged. By the grace of the universe the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. Midoriya never felt more relieved to go back to class than he did now. He may have had his daily alone time interrupted, but at least he was going to get a break from this mild interrogation.

"Have a good day, Hadou-senpai." Midoriya said with a low bow before making a beeline straight for the door.

"I'll be up here tomorrow! I still wanna know more stuff about your quirk. Have a good rest of your day, kohai!" The girl called out as he retreated into the building.

Hadou was about to start making her way back to class herself before something on the ground caught her eye. A couple of meters in front of her was slightly worn out notebook titled: "**Hero Analysis for the Future No. 15"**

'_Oh no, he must've left this behind.'_ The girl thought as she picked it up. Curiosity ended up getting the better of her and she decided to take a quick peek at its content. And the free spirited teen was immediately blown away by what she read. She herself had a pretty big interest in quirks and heroes, but this guy took it to a whole different level. If his regular class notes were anything like this then he was probably an 'A' student.

Realizing that she was probably about to be late to her next class, the blunette decided to locate the teen at the end of the day to return the item to him. But not before getting the chance to check out a few more of his entries.

* * *

"Hey Midoriya! Some babe with blue hair was looking for you earlier." Awase decided to say out loud in front of everyone as soon as Midoriya walked through the door.

Across the room, Tokage's ears perked up this interesting tidbit of information.

Naturally, this caused the boy's cheeks to flush and he became acutely aware of how everyone's were now trained on him. Apparently the universe decided that he wasn't supposed to have an easy day today, so he tried to remedy this situation as soon as possible. "O-oh y-yeah, I know." Was all he really managed to say while scratching his cheek.

"Damn dude, we haven't even been at school for two months and you're already mister popular." Tsuburaba joked.

"Alright boys, that's enough." Kendou immediately scolded the two boys from the back of the room. "You guys should be worried about your grades more than girls."

"Ouch, low blow man." Tsuburaba immediately deflated.

Midoriya gave the girl a silent "thank you" before making his way over to his seat. However, he did miss the curious look that Tokage was giving as we walked across the classroom.

The girl was about to throw a teasing comment the boy's way before Ectoplasm came into the room and ordered everyone into their seats. "Alright students settle down. It's time for everyone's favorite subject, math! I hope you all studied over this long weekend, because today we're having a pop quiz!"

Tetsutetsu let out an audible groan before dropping his head onto his desk and resigning himself to his fate.

* * *

When the final bell of the day rang, the hero course students were quick to pack up their things and start making their way out of the classroom. As expected, most of the talk while the students were leaving was centered around the upcoming internships.

"So Moptop, have you decided on who you're gonna intern with?" Tokage asked the boy as she put away her dinosaur themed pencil case.

"Yes." He nodded.

"Who?"

"I'll be going with the Blizzard Agency."

"Really?" The stoic voice of Yanagi caught his attention.

"Y'know Midoriya-kun, you're really doing a terrible job at convincing us that she's _not_ your older sister." Honenuki joked while joining the conversation.

"What about you guys?" The verdant teen deflected.

"I'll be going with Snatch, the Sand Hero." The lipless teen stated happily.

"That's pretty cool. He specializes in captures so it makes a lot of sense for you."

"Yeah."

"I still haven't decided yet." Yanagi was next to speak. "I'm surprised that Blizzard sent you a request. It's a good fit for you."

Midoriya swears that he could hear a slight tinge of disappointment in the girl's voice. But he wasn't too sure considering her monotone way of speaking.

"Yeah, I'm in the same boat." Tokage chuckled while patting the pale girl on the shoulder. "I'm gonna sort through my offers tonight. I think Metalhead said that he was going to go with Fourth Kind."

"That's pretty awesome."

The conversation ended shortly after that and the students began making their way out of the main building. However, right as they made it past the front gate a certain female voice made her presence known.

"Yoo-hoo, kohai!"

Midoriya and Tokage turned around to see none other than Nejire Hadou floating towards them. The girl was sporting a pretty huge grin on her face and holding something in her right hand.

'_Holy mega-tits, Batman!'_ Tokage internally shouted at the sight of the well-endowed teen. Once the sea of sky blue hair finally registered in her brain she assumed that this was the student that was looking for her friend earlier.

"You left this behind after our chat! Sorry, I couldn't help myself and snuck a peek…or three. These notes are super awesome!" The girl practically shouted before landing on the ground in front of them.

On the inside, Midoriya was in the middle of experiencing a minor heart attack. He didn't even realize that he left the thing up there until this very moment. Suddenly his hands felt clammy and he had to stop himself from using his quirk to rip the notebook out of her hands. This was not good. Not good at all. No one else was supposed to look at those. He already had a bad enough reputation as it was so far as he was aware. He didn't want to imagine what would happen I people found out he created a profile on every student in his class.

"You know her?" Tokage arched a curious eyebrow him. Still wondering who this blue haired bombshell was.

"K-k-kind of." He stuttered out with a bit of redness on his face.

"Of course he does! He's my new protégé. Oh hey, I know you! You're that girl with the cool dismemberment quirk. How does that work? How far can you split your body apart? How long can you stay separated? Do you ever lose parts of your body? Oh wait, are you walking home together? Ooh, are you a couple? You two look really cute together."

While Midoriya quickly descended into a blushing mess, Tokage couldn't help but laugh at this girl. Whoever she was, she definitely seemed like the type of free spirit that she liked. Deciding to make the most of this opportunity, the girl played along with her inquiry.

"Y'know Moptop, she does have a point. We _do _look really cute together." Tokage grinned at him while batting her eyelashes.

The boy's blush further intensified while Hadou's eyes practically lit up at this grave misunderstanding that his classmate just created.

"Oh wow! So you two are dating? That's awesome! How'd you meet? How long have you been going out?"

"M-m-my notebook!" The boy dodged the questions and turned their focus back to the object in the girl's hand.

"Oh, right. Here you go!" She handed it back to him. "I was looking at it during class. You have wonderful observation skills. There's even pictures of all your classmates in their hero costumes. I got bored so I added myself in there. You should take a look at it."

Curiosity got the better of him in that moment and Midoriya immediately flipped the book open to its newest page. And sure enough, there was an entry about the blue haired girl on it. Granted, it wasn't anywhere near as detailed as his notes. But it was a pretty solid base to work off of if he ever wanted to add to it. Also, the girl took the liberty of adding a chibi version of herself in the middle of the page.

'_What's this about?'_ Tokage wondered while trying to sneak a peek at the book herself. Only for Midoriya to immediately close it and stuff it away in his bag.

"Thank you, H-Hadou-senpai."

"Don't mention it. Anyways, I need to get going home. I'll see you later. Bye kohai, bye kohai's girlfriend." She said with a wave before walking off in the opposite direction.

"Well she seems…energetic." Tokage stated while watching the girl retreat into the distance. "I guess that's the "blue haired babe" that was trying to hunt you down earlier?"

"Yeah…" The boy sighed in a defeated tone while dropping his shoulders.

"So...tell me more about this notebook of yours."

"I-I-I will see you tomorrow, Tokage-san." Was the last thing he said before retreating down the road. His face almost an entirely new shade of red.

All the girl could do was give a confused shrug before heading off to the train station to catch up with Tetsutetsu. Whatever that was all about, she was sure that he'd tell her whenever he was ready. However, the mention of him having a page on all of his classmates did spark her curiosity. '_I wonder what he wrote about me in there?'_


	12. Internships: Part 2

The first day of the internships quickly arrived for class 1-B and the students were having a hard time containing their excitement.

At the moment, nearly the entire class was huddled together in the Musutafu train station waiting to be released by their teacher. The blood themed hero taking an extra bit of time to make sure that everyone had what they needed before embarking on their week long journey.

"Alright, you guys are all set and good to go. Make sure that you take full advantage of this opportunity and learn as much as you can. And don't forget to mind your manners!" Kan announced to his students.

"Yes sir!" The hero course hopefuls shouted in unison before heading towards their respective trains. For the most part, their class was spread pretty evenly throughout the country. And only a few of them were going to the same destination.

"Hey Tetsutetsu, where's Setsuna?" Kendou asked the '_steel'_ quirk user.

"Her internship is close to home so she got permission not to come to school today."

"How fortunate." Shiozaki added.

"What about you guys?" The boy turned his head to the rest of the group consisting of Midoriya, Yanagi, Honenuki and Tsunotori.

"Me and Tsunotori-chan are both going to Tokyo." The grey haired girl was the first to answer.

"Oh, I'm heading that way as well. Will we be riding the same train?" The vine haired girl inquired.

"I think so."

"I guess I'll be joining you guys since my internship is in Fuchu." The lipless teen smiled to his classmates.

"Man you guys are lucky, I have to go all the way to Ehime." Kendou laughed.

"What about you, Midoriya-kun?"

"Blizzard's agency is in Saitama. It's only a forty-five minute train ride from here." The greenette responded.

"Well, I hope you guys have fun. Good luck on your internships." The orange haired class-rep told the group before heading towards her terminal.

Everyone gave each other one final goodbye as the group split off to board their respective trains. Naturally, they were going to take this seriously. But the students were more than happy to get started and learn all they could. A week may not have been a lot of time, but it was their duty as future heroes to make the most of this opportunity. And they were more than ready to rise to the occasion.

* * *

Midoriya had to take a moment to calm his nerves as he marveled at the building before him. As soon as he stepped beyond those emerald green double doors, he would officially be starting his internship with Blizzard. Naturally, he was feeling more than a bit anxious about this entire thing. But his excitement was just as great.

With one last breath, he gathered up as much confidence as he could muster before making his approach. First impressions were important. And the last thing he wanted was to come off as incompetent or nervous to the woman that was kind enough to waste her time on a mere hero course hopeful such as himself.

The moment he entered the building, the boy was met with a rather lively reception area. A few people in hero costumes were walking around and conversing with one another. While others were simply lounging about in what he assumed to be some type of rest area. To his knowledge, there were thirty-five heroes in total currently working in this agency. And from the looks of it, there was no shortage of excitement.

"Welcome to the Blizzard Hero Agency, how may we help you?" A voice to his left inquired.

The boy turned his head and was met with the sight of a young woman in a plain black pantsuit. From what he could tell, she was no more than a few years older than him. She had long black hair styled in a ponytail with a single blue streak down the middle, along with a hair accessory in the shape of a white tiger lily.

"H-hello!" He greeted her with a low bow. "I-I'm Izuku Midoriya. I'm suppose to be interning here for the next week."

The woman stared at him intensely for a second before nodding her head. "Yes, Fubuki-san has been expecting you. Please, come with me." She ordered before walking off into the direction of a nearby hallway.

"Yes!" He agreed before following suit.

A couple of minutes passed before the two arrived at a small changing room on the second floor. From what he could tell, the entire building was decorated rather lavishly. Which was odd considering the conservative nature of the agency. "There's a change of clothes inside. You can leave your school uniform and hero costume in there. Once you're finished, please come back down to the lobby." She said in a flat tone.

"Yes, thank you." He bowed once again before entering the room.

Once inside, the boy wasted no time getting undressed and putting on his new outfit. It was a simple black tracksuit with a single green line down the side and a white t-shirt. '_I wonder why they're having me change into this. Maybe we're going to go right into training?'_ He thought to himself.

In no time, the '_telekinesis'_ user was fully dressed and made his way back down to the lobby where the woman from earlier was waiting for him by the reception desk. "Fubuki-san is on the roof. She wants you to meet her up there."

"Oh, alright." He nodded as made his way over to the elevator.

"She also said that you're not allowed to take the stairs _or_ the elevator." The black haired woman suddenly added.

Midoriya couldn't help the look of absolute confusion that crossed his face as he turned back around to face her. What did she mean he wasn't allowed to use the stairs or the elevator? How did she expect him to get up there? Another moment passed before the lightbulb went off over his head. "She wants me to fly up there?"

"That's for you to figure out." The woman simply said while taking her seat back behind the desk.

Deciding to just roll with it, the boy nodded and stepped back outside. As he looked up towards the top of the building, he felt his heart rate suddenly increase. In mere moments, he was going to be face-to-face with Blizzard. He had no clue what the woman was like. But if the last fifteen minutes or so was any indication, she had to be an interesting character. Midoriya let out another quick breath before activating his quirk and levitating to the roof of the building.

It only took him a few seconds to reach the top, and as soon as his head passed over the wall he was immediately met with something being thrown into his chest. '_What the hell?'_ Midoriya wondered after briefly fumbling with the object and looking down to see what was now in his hands. It was a simple black backpack not unlike the one he brought with him to school. It wasn't heavy by any means, but there was obviously something inside of it.

"Make sure you hold on to that." A female voice suddenly said directly in front of him. "Follow me."

Midoriya didn't even get a chance to look up before a gust of wind rushed past his face. Once he finally got his bearings, he turned around to see a green, human shaped figure quickly retreating into the distance. The only noticeable feature that he could see was a patch of dark green hair on the person's head.

'_She's fast.'_ He thought. In the time it took him to him to look up, the woman was already about three hundred meters away from him. On any other day, the boy would've taken the time to analyze the woman's quirk and her obvious mastery over the ability to fly. But now was not the time for that. Instead, he simply threw the backpack over his shoulders and gave chase.

'_This is going to be interesting.'_

* * *

While her classmates were on their way to their respective internships, Tokage was casually strolling down the street with a smile on her face. Not only was she looking forward to officially starting her week long adventure, but the fact that she didn't even have to bother going to school this morning was just icing on the cake. So with a belly full of breakfast and an extra two hours of sleep under her belt, she was more than ready to face the day ahead of her.

It didn't take long before she found herself standing in front of her destination, the Edgeshot Hero Office. The girl was still surprised that the number five hero of all people sent her a request, but she wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. In truth, she spent quite a bit of time going back and forth between coming here, the Ryukyu office or interning under Kayama. But in the end, she felt this was the best place for her to go.

Edgeshot was a well respected pro with a near flawless career to his name. And he had one of the best arrest records in the entire country. Sure, becoming a rescue hero was ultimately her goal, but it would be beneficial in the long run to broaden her horizons and get a feel for other aspects of heroism as well. And there was no better place than here to learn such valuable information.

Once she entered the building, Tokage was quickly ushered towards the elevator by one of the staff members. Admittedly, the girl was having a hard time keeping her nerves in check and with good reason. What was the guy like? What did he plan for them to do today? In public, the pro hero presented himself as a cool, calm and collected person who always knew what to do in times of a crisis. Was he the same way behind closed doors? Whatever he was like, she was definitely looking forward to her first encounter with the ninja hero. And she was more than ready to prove her worth.

The ringing of the elevator quickly brought her out of ruminations and the doors opened up to reveal a large office decorated in a way that made it look like one of those old school dojos that you'd see in movies. Tokage took a moment to marvel at the place and felt even more excited to begin working here. She spent the next couple of minutes perusing the place, but the longer she looked around the more concerned she grew. And there was one reason for this.

Edgeshot was nowhere to be found.

In all honesty, she was expecting some type of formal greeting. But when it became apparent that her mentor for the week was a no-show, she began to wonder if she was even supposed to be here in the first place.

"Your situational awareness needs work." A calm voice said immediately to her left, causing the girl to jump back and let out a slight "yelp" sound. Once she got her wits about her, Tokage was met with the sight of a thin strand of red wire quickly reforming itself into none other than the number five hero himself. "That's something that we'll need to work on."

"Holy shit, you scared the hell out of me!" The girl blurted out before recomposing herself and bowing before the man.

"Yes, that was the goal." The masked man simply said before making his way over the small table in the center of the room. Motioning for her to join him.

Tokage quickly complied and took the spot across from him as he poured her a cup of fresh tea. Her previous excitement was quickly replaced with a slight bit of dread. Not even five minutes into the start of her internship and she's already made herself look like an idiot. First impressions are important, and her was definitely less than stellar.

"So...why do you think I sent you an offer, Tokage-san?" Edgeshot asked while handing the girl the cup.

"Well…" The girl started before briefly thinking over her response. "I would assume it was because of my performance in the Sports Festival."

"Yes, you did remarkably well from what I saw. But there are two main reasons as to why I decided to reach out to you."

"Two?" She quirked an eyebrow at him.

"The first, is that you seem to have a good grasp on how to play into your strengths. During the cavalry battle, your team stayed away from the limelight and you used your opponents enthusiasm to your advantage."

"What about the second reason, sir?"

"I find your quirk particularly interesting."

"Oh." The girl nodded her head in confirmation. That made a lot of sense. The two of them had a certain level of compatibility when it came to quirks.

"Your power has near limitless potential when it comes to espionage and stealth operations. Not only that, but it's combat applications could be viewed in the same light. Your abilities could be a major turning point when it comes to battle. And you seem to have a good grasp on how to use them."

"Thank you, sir." The girl said with a toothy grin.

"While you are here this week, it will be my job to help you improve on your skill set and get you to expand your repertoire. But we can discuss that in further detail later. For now, I'd like to know what your capable of as you are now. So please, tell me more about your quirk."

"Of course." Tokage said as she placed the cup down on the table. "I call my quirk '_lizard tail splitter'_, I can detach any part of my body at will and can control those pieces remotely. As of right now, I can only safely split myself up into twenty-five separate parts. Trying to do more will dramatically drain my stamina and cause me to pass out. While in this state, all of my organs can function independently. Unfortunately I can only maintain this form for about five minutes before I have to recall all of my pieces."

"Downsides?"

"My biggest issue is exhaustion. I can regenerate lost pieces and small wounds to some extent. But doing so just drains my stamina depending on how bad it is."

"So you have multiple quirks?"

"I wouldn't say so." The girl replied. "The regeneration aspect of my quirk is slow, and it takes a lot of energy and calories. If my pieces are scattered for too long, the cells begin to die off at a pretty fast rate. The most I've ever lost was part of my arm and that took nearly a full day to grow back. On top of that, I had to eat a lot more than I usually do help speed up the process. Another thing is that I can only repair the damage _after_ I put myself back together."

The masked hero stayed silent for a moment as he processed this information. In his opinion, the girl's quirk was nothing short of spectacular. Not only did it make her polyvalent, but she could heal herself on top of that. He had no doubt that there was even more complexity to her quirk, but this was more than enough information to start with.

"I can see why you got into U.A. on recommendations." The man said in what she assumed was a joking tone before standing up. "You have your hero costume with you, correct?"

"Yes sir!" Tokage patted the metal briefcase with the number fourteen on the front.

"Your room is on the next floor down. That's where you'll be staying for the remainder of your internship. Head down there, get dressed and meet me in the training room on the third floor. I want to get a better assessment of your skills."

In the back of her mind, Tokage had a pretty good idea of where this was heading. Sure, she wasn't expecting to get into a sparring match with a top hero on her very first day. But she was definitely looking forward to getting the chance to show what she can do. Without a moment's hesitation, the girl grabbed her things and made a beeline straight for the elevator.

* * *

To say that Midoriya was confused would be an understatement.

It had been five minutes ever since he and Blizzard took off from the roof of her agency and he had absolutely no clue as to where their destination was. He had never been to this part of the prefecture before so he there weren't any landmarks that he was able to recognize. And to make matters even more difficult, he was completely unable to close the distance between him and his apparent mentor for the week. Although his speed in the air was respectable, there was an obvious gap in their abilities.

The woman hadn't said so much as word to him the entire time. The only acknowledgement from her that he received so far were the few times she would look back to see if he was still following her. In truth, he was starting to get worried. He was already halfway over his limit and there was seemingly no end in sight. On top of that, he was starting to feel a bit winded.

Suddenly, and without any type of warning, the woman made a hard right around a building. Midoriya admittedly had a bit of trouble changing directions so harshly but was still able to keep up.

Another minute passed before he spotted Blizzard floating in the air above what looked to be so kind of junkyard. With the end of their journey now in sight the green haired teen kicked it into another gear and quickly put himself right next to her.

Once they were side by side, he was finally able to fully take in her appearance. The woman was dressed in a tracksuit just like the one he was wearing, except the color pallet was inverted. She had chin length, dark green hair. Emerald eyes the same color as own. And even though the two of them floating in the air, he could tell that they were roughly the same height.

'_Honestly, I can see why everyone thinks we're related.'_

"That wasn't too rough on you was it?" Blizzard asked him a serious tone as she folded her arms.

"N-no ma'am. I can really only stay in the air for about eleven minutes before I need to take a break." He nervously responded.

"I see." The woman nodded her head before pointing towards the ground. "You see that car right there?" She motioned towards an old pickup truck that had definitely seen better days.

"Yes."

"Are you able to lift that?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Bring it up here." She ordered.

The boy simply compiled with her demands and stuck his arm out towards the vehicle. Even though it was well within his weight limit, levitating the thing off the ground wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Once the truck was right in front of the two of them, Blizzard gave him a curious look that he couldn't really place.

"I want you to throw that as far as you can."

"Wait, is that safe? Someone could get hurt."

A brief silence passed before Blizzard let out a slight chuckle. He doesn't really see what the pro heroine found so funny about that. The last thing he wanted was to injure someone on account of him being irresponsible with his quirk.

"Don't worry, the crew doesn't show up until the evening so you have nothing to fear. I come here all the time to train my quirk so I know how things operate around here. So don't be afraid to let loose."

All Midoriya could do was nod in agreement before turning his attention back to the truck. The boy sucked in a bit of air and quickly sent the thing flying towards the other side of the junkyard. Once it was firmly out of his reach, the truck dropped to the ground with a loud crashing sound that resulted in a pretty sizeable dust cloud in the distance.

"I'd say that's roughly four hundred meters." Blizzard commented with a somewhat impressed expression. "Is that the limit of your range?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Impressive." Was all she said before descending back down to the ground, causing the boy to follow suit.

Once his feet were firmly back onto a solid surface, Midoriya released his quirk and stretched his muscles out a bit. When it came to using his quirk on himself, the feeling was similar to that of running. The longer he went, the more difficult it was to maintain his control. And accelerating with short burst was the same as sprinting.

"I'm not really one for formalities, so let's right into it." The woman started. "I want to get a good idea of what you're capable of. The two of us are going to have a bit of sparring match with our quirks. The objective his simple, all you have to do is stop me from taking that bag off your back."

"Really?" Midoriya tilted his head in confusion. Obviously, it was a good idea to assess his skills. But getting into a battle right out the gate was a bit much.

"Yes." Blizzard nodded. "We have free reign to use this entire area to our hearts content. If you can last three minutes without me taking that backpack, then you'll have passed your first test. Are those conditions acceptable to you, Izuku Midoriya?"

The boy took a moment to think about this. Part of him had the sneaking suspicion that this was some kind of setup. Obviously the woman was much more adept than he was when it came to their quirks. And from everything he had seen on video, she was a good fighter. To make matters worse, he had next to no experience battling someone with a similar skillset to his own. Usually he could rely on his mobility as an advantage over others. But this wasn't going to be anywhere near as easy.

With as much confidence as he could muster, Midoriya gave the woman his best smile and took up a stance. "That's fine with me."

"Excellent." Blizzard grinned.

* * *

It was only after she found herself standing mere meters away from the number five hero did the reality of the situation finally set in for Tokage. Although she was confident in her own abilities, she knew that the man had earned that title for a reason. In her mind, she knew she really only had one chance at defeating the masked man. And she was going to make sure that she took full advantage of that opportunity.

"Begin whenever you're ready." Edgeshot told her as he crouched down into his fighting stance.

Tokage was more than happy to do as the man said and wasted no time getting the party started.

With her first move, the girl detached the bottom half of her left arm and sent it flying towards the pro. As expected, the man dodged it with little to no difficulty. But she was counting on that. The girl quickly followed up by turning her appendage around and attempted a strike to the back of his head. But much to her own surprise, the masked man was able to dodge that attack as well by simply side stepping to his left.

Seeing now that this was going to be just as difficult as she imagined, the girl detached her other arm and used both of her free floating limbs to strike him in multiple places at once. But every single time she made a move on him, he would simply move out of the way.

'_He's moving like water. And he hasn't even used his quirk yet.'_ The girl clicked her teeth in annoyance.

"Is this the limit if your abilities?" He asked her in a neutral tone.

"Not at all!" Tokage shot back before splitting up the rest of her arms up into smaller pieces and sending a wave of flesh towards him. The guy may have been light on his feet, but even he would've had a hard time dealing with this.

What happened next proved to Tokage exactly why the masked man before her was able to earn the spot of number five hero in all of Japan. Quite literally in the time it took her to blink, Edgeshot activated his quirk and wrapped himself around not only all of her individual floating pieces, but the rest of her body as well. The entire room was covered in a thin strand of red wire and it left the greenette wondering just how fast he was really was when it came to his powers.

"Would you care to know what your first mistake was?" Edgeshot asked while forming his head in front of her face.

"What?" Tokage grimaced while trying to break free from his grip. Just as she was about to split her body up and slip through the gaps in his quirk, the pro hero quickly filled them.

"You didn't restrict my movements. When it comes to someone with a quirk like mine, any opening that you allow could be used as an escape route. I thought you said you were able to split yourself up into twenty-five separate sections."

"I can." She told him. "But it's not like I had a lot of time to think. And it's better to not spread myself so thin. The less I divide my body, the easier it is to control."

"A logical way of thinking." He retorted as he released his hold on her. "This will serve as your first lesson. If you have an opportunity to pin down your opponent, then take it. When facing off against criminals the earlier you restrain them the sooner you can resolve the situation."

"And how do you suppose I do that?"

"I have a few ideas, but we can discuss them while we're out on patrol."

The green haired girl paused for a second as she let the words set in. Patrol? They were actually going to head out and do some real hero work this early? It was only the first day. Sure she expected this to happen, but not so soon. A feeling of excitement quickly welled up in her chest and she had a hard time suppressing the smile that crept onto her face.

"Are you sure that's such a good idea? I mean, I just got here. Isn't there like a learning curve or something?"

"In my opinion, the most effective way to learn is through real world experience and hands on application. For the time being you'll be more of an observer and an extra set of hands if the situation calls for it. But what I mainly want you to do is watch how I operate and absorb as much information as you can. Is that alright with you?"

"Yes, sir!" The girl practically cheered with a wide grin.

"Then let's head out." The man told her as he began making his way to the elevator and motioning for her to follow.

With no hesitation, Tokage fell into step behind him and mentally prepared herself for her first real taste of the world of heroism.

* * *

Awkward wasn't a foreign feeling to Izuku Midoriya, not by a longshot. But when it came to his current situation, he couldn't help but feel just a bit more embarrassed than what he was used to.

To say that the boy didn't even stand a chance would be a fairly accurate assessment. The match between him and Blizzard lasted all of forty-five seconds before he was pinned to the ground. He was stuck on both knees as his body was being restricted by various pipes and pieces of scrap metal. In all honesty, he should've seen this outcome coming from a mile away.

The moment the match between him and the green haired woman began, he immediately took to the air to try and put some distance between the two of them. But Blizzard managed to cut him off with ease. Seeing that he had no chance of outrunning her, he reacted by lifting up a few pieces of junk around them and flung them at his opponent. However, the woman stopped the attack without so much as raising a finger and simply sent the pieces of scrap right back at him. Somehow the boy was able to dodge the attack. But in that time, Blizzard was able to close the distance between the two of them and used her quirk to force him to the ground.

For a brief moment, the woman released her hold on her quirk and he was able to stand back onto his feet. His mind began racing on how to proceed from there. Blizzard had the advantage in speed and maneuverability. And to make matters worse, she could counter anything that he threw at her. Hoping to catch her off guard, the boy used his '_telekinesis'_ to bring a car door in front of him in hopes of using it a shield while simultaneously launching another piece of scrap metal towards her. Unfortunately for him, Blizzard simply used her own quirk on his backpack and pulled him back a good twenty meters from where he was standing. The rest was pretty much history after that.

Just when he got himself in order, various pieces of rusted metal and pipes wrapped themselves around his body and forced him to his knees. He tried his best to remove the objects, but the woman used her own quirk to keep them in place. Signaling the end of the match.

"To be honest, you lasted longer than I expected. I was certain that I would be able to end this in less than thirty seconds." Blizzard taunted as she twirled the backpack in the air in front of him. "But I believe that I have a pretty good idea of what you can do."

The next thing Midoriya felt were the pipes uncoiling themselves from around his arms and torso and he was once again in control of his body.

"We may have only gone at it for less than a minute, but I can already see some glaring holes in the way you fight. You don't have a lot of experience going at it against people with similar quirks, do you?" The green haired heroine inquired.

"No ma'am." He responded. "There's a girl in my class with a telekinetic quirk, but her weight limit isn't that high and she can't use it on herself to fly."

"I see." She nodded while setting herself back onto the ground. "There are three major observations I was able to make during our little sparring session. Can you guess what they are?"

The green haired boy racked his brain for a moment as he replayed the last couples of minutes in his head. From his perspective, he was simply outclassed. Everything he was used to doing was easily countered by the woman in front of him. In short, there was nothing he could do. Instead of giving her an answer, he simply shook his head.

"The first is that you didn't use the area to your advantage." Blizzard stated as she held up one finger. "When in a fight, you have to take the terrain into account. This entire area is full of things you could use to subdue an opponent."

"I understand." He nodded.

"The second is your hands." She held up another finger.

"I'm sorry?" He said with a confused look.

"You telegraph everything that you're doing with the way you move your hands. It makes your moves easy to read. It's a habit that people with quirks like ours usually develop during childhood, so you'll have to learn how to break it."

"I see." Midoriya was now regretting not having his notebook with him. Not even a full hour into his internship and he was already receiving some invaluable information and advice. "What about the third?"

"The third is your lack of experience when it comes to fighting."

"Okay."

"I can tell that you're not used to being in a fight. That's something that we can work on while you're here. But it'd be in your best interest to try and get more battle experience."

"Yes ma'am."

"But that's something we can talk about in greater detail while we eat." She told him as she unzipped the backpack that was still levitating above her hand and pulling out a few medium sized plastic containers and a large blanket. "This probably isn't the best atmosphere to eat in, but it's a better alternative than going all the back to the agency. Which do you prefer, steak or chicken?"

"Uh, c-chicken ma'am."

"Please Midoriya-kun, you can just call me Fubuki." The green haired woman smiled as she handed him his food.

"Right, sorry Fubuki-san." The boy slightly blushed.

* * *

The two telekinetic quirk users wasted no time in digging into their meal and engaging in a bit of small talk. Although Midoriya wasn't used to eating in the middle of the morning, that didn't stop him from him enjoying the food. He wasn't exactly sure how he thought his internship was going to go. But he was glad that his mentor seemed to be the easygoing type.

"So Midoriya-kun, I'd like to know the details of your quirk. Obviously we have similar ones, but I'd still like for you to explain it to me."

"R-right!" The boy answered as he readjusting himself. "Well…as you can already tell my quirk is '_telekinesis'_."

"A pretty straightforward title." Katsuragi joked.

"Yeah…I'm not that good with naming things."

"Don't be ashamed, I call mine '_psychokinesis'_. Which is essentially the same thing."

"Oh…" He nodded before continuing. "My quirk allows me to manipulate objects within a certain weight limit, including myself. As of right now, my maximum range is four hundred meters and my weight is about 14,500 kilograms. But the last time I tried that, I ended up passing out for a few hours. I have no trouble lifting things such as cars or small trucks. But the longer I do that, the more taxing it is on my body. In addition to this, I'm able to wield six separate items at one time but that's all I can manage. I started out only being able to hold two things, but the more I practiced I was gradually able to improve over time. And it's difficult for me to focus if I try anything greater. When using my quirk on myself, I can reach a top speed of roughly 40 kph. But I can only hold that for a few seconds. The drawbacks to my quirk all come from extended use. Most of my symptoms include headaches, nosebleeds, lightheadedness, hunger and a bit of nausea that can last for a full day if I push myself too hard. On top of that, I can't move things I can't see. Once I have control of something I'm able to manipulate it with my eyes closed, but I can't grab something if I don't know it's there. And if I suffer any type of strong blow to the head I'm unable to use my quirk for a period of time depending on how bad the impact is. The longest I've been unable to use my quirk was for a full day after suffering a concussion when I was training. But everything went back to normal after that."

…

…

…

Once the boy was done giving the woman a _brief _overview of his powers all he got in return was a blank stare. He really should find a way to limit things to thirty words or less.

"Okay…I think I got most of that. To be honest, I'm surprised you were able to say that many words in one breath." Katsuragi said in an amused tone.

"S-sorry, I kinda have a habit of rambling." He awkwardly rubbed the back of his head.

"I can tell. But I am impressed by your skills. It took me until I was about your age to be able to move a truck without causing myself a migraine. And learning how to fly was a whole different issue altogether."

'_Still, our quirks are remarkably similar.'_ The woman said to herself.

"Wow."

"But now I have a better understanding of what you can do. And I know exactly how we're going to move forward with your training."

"So what's the plan?"

"Before the end of the week, I'm going to teach you how to maximize your usage. You're much too straightforward with how you handle things and it makes you predictable. Also, you're way to simplistic."

"What do you mean?"

The green haired woman chose not to respond. Instead, she brought over one of the nearby metal pipes still lying on the ground. Midoriya watched as the woman began bending it into all different shapes before straightening it out. "Psychokinesis is a very versatile power. Not only are you capable of moving objects as they are, you should be able to reform them into different shapes to suit your needs depending on what it is. This pipe is a perfect example. Something like this should be well within your abilities."

"I see." The boy whispered. In all honesty, it never even occurred to him to do something like that.

"Give it a try." She told him while levitating the pipe directly in front of him.

Midoriya let out a deep breath before taking hold of the object himself. Although it seemed like a monumental task, he actually had less difficulty doing it than he expected. With his palm facing outward, the boy brought his fingers together in a "clamping" motion while imagining the pipe bending at the center. Forcing the hollow metal tube to bend in half. He couldn't tell if it was due to the materials that the thing was made of or some other factor. But the action was rather easy. How he never thought of doing something like this beforehand was a mystery to him.

However, that was as far as he could go. When he attempted to duplicate his mentor's earlier action and twist the pipe into a coil shape, he found it considerably harder than simply bending it in half.

"We'll have time to work on it after we get done this afternoon."

"Done with what?"

"Our afternoon patrol." The woman announced, causing the boy's eyes to light up with excitement.

Things were about to get a lot more interesting.


	13. Internships: Part 3

After returning to the agency, Midoriya quickly ran up to his room and made the necessary preparations to head on out patrol. Naturally, the boy was looking forward to going out and getting a feel for what actual hero work was like. But there was still a slight bit of nervousness gnawing at the back of his head.

His morning training session with Katsuragi was a bit of an eye opener on how much he still needed to improve when it came to his quirk. There was no doubt that he would be able to learn a lot from the woman. So it was his duty to ensure that he absorbed as much information as possible in the seven days that he was going to be under her tutelage.

As he cracked open the metal case with the number eighteen written on it, he couldn't help but smile at the new addition to his costume. Much like the rest of his outfit, the helmet's design was simple. It was straight black with green lenses that matched the color of his eyes. The piece of equipment was also designed to completely cover his head and had a good amount of padding on the inside. As he inspected it a bit further, he noticed a piece of paper tucked into one of the pads near the crown of the head.

"_Dear Izuku Midoriya,_

_The support company would like to formally apologize for the delay in finishing your requested item. Due to a shortage of materials along with your late submission, extra time was needed to complete the design. Thank you for understanding. Also, we here at the U.A. support course took it upon ourselves to add a few features that weren't in the original schematics. After your match in the Sports Festival, infrared lenses were added to help assist you in any future hero operations. Instructions for how to operate are inside of the case. If you have any further questions, please contact your support course representative, which is me!_

_-Mei Hatsume."_

"I guess the support course has free reign to alter designs without clearing it with us first." The boy thought as he set the item down on his bed. Even if he didn't ask for it, he was grateful that someone was looking out for him when it came to overcoming one of his weaknesses. "I have to make sure to thank this Hatsume person whenever I see her."

A few minutes passed before the boy was fully dressed in his costume. He was almost completely ready to make his way down to the lobby. But there was one unforeseen issue that was still holding him up. His helmet didn't fit.

The measurements were exactly spot on from his request form. But the boy obviously failed to factor his hair into the equation. When he tried to put it on, either the fit was too tight or tufts of his green mane would cover his eyes. Before he could think of a solution to this wardrobe malfunction, a knock at the door drew his focus.

"Come in!" He called out, prompting Katsuragi to enter the room. Much like his costume, hers was relatively simple. The woman was dressed in a dark green form-fitting dress, knee-high black boots and a white fur overcoat that cut off at her waist.

"Are you ready, Midoriya-kun?" The green haired heroine asked while giving him the once over.

"A-almost…." He responded with a slight blush on his face. "I'm just having a bit of an issue."

"What's wrong?"

"It's my helmet...it doesn't quite fit."

"You're just now figuring this out? I thought you've had your hero suit for a while now."

"My helmet was just finished, so this is my first time trying it on. The measurements are right but my hair just keeps getting in the way." He bashfully admitted.

"Hmmm…" Katsuragi rubbed the side of her face for second before an idea popped into her head. "I have some hair gel in my office. That should hold be able to help. But you might want to consider getting a haircut. It's a more efficient solution."

"That's probably a good idea." He responded. The boy couldn't even remember the last time he cut his hair. He was never one to care about his appearance all that much. But if it made wearing his support item easier, then it was just a necessary evil.

"Let's go to my office so we can handle this. I want us to get as much patrol time as possible today. It may be a Wednesday, but most people are out on their lunch breaks right about now and that means there shouldn't be a shortage of work." Katsuragi stated as she made her way towards the door.

"Y-yes, ma'am!"

* * *

The first two hours of her first ever patrol were not as exciting as Tokage had imagined. Her and her mentor for the week had pretty much spent the entire time walking around one of his designated routes while he gave her a few tips and tricks of the trade. Part of the girl was itching to see some action, but she was well aware that the less work the two of them had to do, the better.

"As you are already aware, heroes are nothing more than civil servants just like the police and firefighters. The only real difference is that we're allowed to use our quirks to handle any situation that we run in to. Our main job is to control crime and assist in any matters that we can." The masked hero sated as the two turned a corner.

"Yes, sir." Tokage responded while taking mental notes.

"Heroes can be specifically requested by the police or handle anything that we run into and keep things contained until villains can be arrested and sent in for processing. We file reports for the work we do and then the Hero Public Safety Commission reviews them and that's how we get paid. The bigger the job, the more money we earn."

"Yeah, my aunt was telling me about how there's a special agency within the HPSC that has like thirty members whose job is to look over all the resolved cases."

"I take it your aunt is a hero then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, then I'm sure you're already aware of how tedious the process can get. The sooner you complete your paperwork, the less of a headache you have to deal with. Most pros have to set aside time throughout their day strictly for paper pushing. Or they have a staff member handle it for them. Once we get back to the agency I'll show you how to properly fill those out."

"I'm looking forward to it-"

The green haired girl was cut off when a loud boom and the sound of shattering glass interrupted her.

"Someone help! We've been robbed!" A middle aged woman standing in front of what looked to be some type of jewelry store cried out. In the distance, Tokage could see a group of men dressed in all black jumping into pickup truck near the crime scene.

"Stay here and make sure that woman is alright. I'll handle those thieves!" Edgeshot ordered before sprinting down the road and activating his quirk to swing in between the light poles.

'_Not a moment's hesitation. I guess that's a top hero for you.'_ The girl thought before running towards the woman. "Are you okay? Was anyone injured?"

"I'm fine, you don't have to worry about me. But those hooligans completely cleaned us out."

"Don't worry ma'am, Edgeshot's here. He'll deal with those guys in a flash." She reassured the woman. In situations like these it was best to keep the victim calm. That was pretty much the first lesson of "Hero-ing 101". And with a top hero on the scene, there was nothing to worry about.

"Thanks goodness." The woman breathed a sigh of relief.

Further down the road, Edgeshot had closed the distance between him and the escaping vehicle. Unfortunately for the group of villains, their getaway hit a bit of snag. Due to the fact that it was rush hour the upcoming crosswalk was filled with civilians. Not looking to add manslaughter onto an already substantial armed robbery charge, the woman behind the wheel began honking the horn to alert everyone to get out of the way. This proved futile though as the people didn't move in time, forcing her to hit the breaks.

"Dammit!" The man in the back seat cursed while preparing his quirk.

"That's Edgeshot, I thought you said he doesn't come through this area during the week?"

"He must've switched up his route. It doesn't matter though, there's four of us and one of him!" Another said while opening the car door. "Let's hurry and handle him before some other heroes show up!"

Three of the villains proceed to jumped out of the vehicle and wasted no time in engaging the pro. The first man used his quirk to fire off small ice spikes from his hands while the other produced a few heated spikes from his. The masked hero had no issue in dodging these attacks and had already picked out his first victim. A large man with orange skin who obviously had no long range capabilities.

'_I'll deal with this one quickly and incapacitate the other two. Their driver is still in the car so she'll be last.'_ He told himself before activating his own quirk and launching himself towards the man. "**Ninpo: Thousand Sheet Pierce!"**

What the pro hero wasn't expecting was for the man to have a hardening quirk. His razor-thin sheet of red wire practically bounced off the guy like a coin on the pavement. '_No good, huh? I'll go after the ice user then.'_

Edgeshot proceeded to redirect himself and pierce the chest of the other man, knocking him out instantly. With one down, his new target was the other spike user. But just as he was about to deliver the finishing blow, the '_hardening'_ quirk user jumped in his way.

"That trick won't work on me hero! You're out of your element!" The orange skinned man taunted in a smug fashion.

"Well it's a good thing that he has help!" A female voice suddenly said from above them.

Out of nowhere, both of the remaining villains and the car began floating into the air. Everyone in the surrounding area upturned their gazes to see a green haired woman levitating in the sky along with another person wearing all black. '_Blizzard?' _

"Skywalker, keep this truck suspended in the air and don't let that person open the door. I'll deal with these two." Blizzard commanded the masked individual.

"R-right!" Midoriya nodded before taking control of the vehicle. The person inside was doing her best to open the driver side door, but he was able to hold it in place.

"And make sure you take notes."

What happened next only further confirmed the gap between the two telekinetic user's abilities. Everyone watched as Blizzard ripped one of the awnings off a nearby building and wrapped the metal frame around both of the villains before setting them onto the ground. With a clear shot, Edgeshot used his quirk to pierce the mouth of the larger of the two men before doing the same to other one.

With those two out of the way, the three turned their attention back towards the last remaining person in the truck.

"Fuck, get me out of here!" The woman screamed out as her hand reformed into a giant metal claw and pierced through the door.

"I'll take it from here." Blizzard said while retaking control of the truck. The green haired heroine then pulled the door off of it's frame and used her quirk to grab hold of the villain before forcing her to the ground. "She's all yours, Edgeshot."

"Yes." The masked hero simply said as knocked out the woman with the same move from earlier.

With all four of the robbers now subdued, the two greenettes descended onto the ground before making their way over to the number five hero.

"Thanks for the help. I'll admit I was going to have a hard time finding an opening with that hardening user. You came right in time." Edgeshot gave the two a slight bow.

"Don't mention it." Blizzard waved off.

'_Oh my god, it's the number five hero, Edgeshot! I completely forgot that his agency is in this area. Man, I wish I had the time to get his autograph. His quirk is so versatile!'_ Midoriya silently fanboyed inside of his head. Thankfully he was wearing his helmet or the two pros would've seen the expression of absolute astonishment plastered all over his face.

"It's a surprise seeing you around here. I thought you usually patrol the shopping area near the financial district."

"You're right, but I thought I'd switch things up today to give my intern here a lay of the land."

"Intern?" The masked hero turned his gaze towards Midoriya. "Well that's a coincidence, I also have-"

"Is everything alright over here?!" A familiar voice called out. Midoriya looked to his left to see none other than his classmate quickly sprinting towards their location. '_Tokage-san?' _

"Lizardy, how's that woman?"

"She's fine, no injuries. She told me that she was okay and called the police. I thought it was a good idea to come over and see if you needed any help."

"Good job, but in the future make sure you wait until after the police arrive before leaving the scene of a crime." The masked man said in a matter of fact tone. It was a simple rookie mistake, so there was no need in making a big deal about it.

"Yes, sir." The green haired girl awkwardly smiled before glancing at other two people. The first person she knew almost immediately with her dark green hair and expensive looking coat. The other person took her second before she recognized the outfit. He may have been wearing that cool looking helmet now, but there was no mistaking who it was. "Moptop?"

"You know each other?" Blizzard raised an eyebrow at her intern.

"H-hello T-Tokage-san." He greeted the girl in a bit of shaky tone. "I didn't know you were going to be working with Edgeshot."

"Yeah, awesome right?! She smiled back at the boy. "We're in the same class. We even partnered up during the Sports Festival."

"Ah yes, that's why you look so familiar." The green haired heroine nodded.

"We can save the introductions for later. For now, I suggest that we secure these other villains and wait for them to get picked up." Edgeshot interjected.

"Agreed."

* * *

Over the next ten or so minutes, the group did all they could to clean up the crime scene. It wasn't long before the police finally arrived and carted the group of robbers off. The two students made sure to pay extra attention to how the process went for handing off any criminals and how to interact with their peers.

"Thank you again for showing up, I appreciate it." Edgeshot repeated.

All Blizzard could do was smile at this. "It was my pleasure."

"Y'know...I'm kinda sad I missed all the action." Tokage joked while leaning her arm on Midoriya's shoulder, causing the boy to blush.

'_She's so close!'_

"Being a hero is more about doing battle with villains and thugs. Ensuring the safety of the bystanders should always be your number one priority. You did well to make sure that the shop owner was safe before joining us."

"You should take her words to heart, Lizardy. Blizzard _is_ one of the top rescue heroes in the country and ranked thirtieth for a reason. Hell, she'd be a shoe-in for the top ten if she put in any effort into her marketing and public image." Edgeshot said in what everyone assumed to be a joking tone.

"Stuff like that doesn't interest me anymore. I'll leave the popularity contest to guys like you and All Might." The woman quipped in return.

"I agree." The masked man said. "I may prefer to operate in the shadows, but nowaday-"

*******Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want. So tell me what you want, what you really, really want-*** The man was interrupted by Blizzard's cell phone going off.

"Excuse me." The woman quickly apologized before pressing the green button on her screen. "Go for Blizzard."

"_Hey boss, it's Madoka! We have a bit of a situation. An office building collapsed near the mall and we could really use your help. I know you're busy training the rookie but we're out of our depth and people may still be trapped inside!"_ The voice of Ozehana said on the other side of the line.

"A building collapse!" Everyone's ears perked up after hearing this. "We're on the way!"

"_Thanks!"_

"Sorry, but we have a situation near the mall. We have to go." She looked to the masked man.

"Allow us to come with you. The situation is serious and you could use some extra sets of hands. And I have to repay you for your earlier assistance."

"Fine, it's only a few minutes away if we fly. I can carry you there."

All of a sudden, Midoriya felt a foreign weight place itself onto his back. The boy turned his head to see Tokage grinning down at him while wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "Well what the hell are we waiting for? Let's get going!"

"T-T-Tokage-san?!"

"Aww what's wrong, dude? Are you embarrassed to have a pretty girl ride you?" Her grin widened to an almost feral smile as she watched him fumble from her not-so-subtle innuendo. Even with the helmet on, she could practically see the redness on his cheeks.

"Lewd comments aside, the girl is right. We need to get going. Are you fine with carrying her, Skywalker?"

"Y-yes, ma'am."

"Then let's get a move on!" The woman commanded before levitating into the air, grabbing onto her colleague and launching herself towards the sky.

"Phew, I think she's faster than you Moptop." Tokage whistled at the woman's speed. Her and Midoriya may have the same quirk, but she was definitely on a different level.

"Yeah."

"Well we can't let them leave us behind! Onward, my steed!" The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user shouted while pointing to the sky.

All Midoriya could do was let out a slight groan as he took off into the air. Now wasn't the time to get flustered at the thought of having a pretty girl cling to his back like a baby koala. People were in trouble and there was no time to waste.

* * *

Within a few minutes the group of heroes and interns were at the scene. And to say that things didn't look good would be putting it mildly. Like they had been told, there was a building collapse. If there was any consolation to this mess, it was that only half of what they assumed to be some sort of office building was reduced to rubble. The rest was still standing. At the exact same moment, Midoriya and Tokage felt a lump appear in their throats at what they were seeing.

"Holy shit." Tokage whispered out in disbelief.

Recovery operations seemed to be underway and Midoriya recognized a few of the heroes on the ground from Blizzard's agency. Some were moving rubble into a small clearing while what looked to be a female in a form fitting variation of a firefighter's uniform was using her quirk to snuff out the remaining flames.

"You two head over to where the EMT's are and help out. Skywalker, I might you need you to assist in moving the debris." Blizzard ordered.

"Do whatever the rescue crew says and stay alert." Edgeshot added.

"Right!" The two students nodded before flying over to where the nearby ambulances were located. Once they were on the ground, they could see just how serious the situation was. People in gurneys were being loaded up and there were other injured civilians being treated in a blocked off area.

"Who are you two?" One of the firefighters asked from behind them.

"We're hero interns." Tokage answered. "We were told to come over here and help out with whatever we can."

"Thank goodness." The man said with a slight grin. "Do either of you have quirks that can help us move some of these patients? We're spread pretty thin."

"I do!" Midoriya quickly responded. "I have telekinesis."

"I know a bit of first aid. But I'm not an expert."

"Every little bit helps." The man waved them on. "Come over here and help us load this guy onto the gurney."

The two greenettes did as they were told and followed the man towards a nearby coffee shop where one of the paramedics had just finished treating a man with what looked like two broken legs on top of spine board. "Move this one onto the gurney. Try not to jostle him too much, he has a spinal injury."

"Got it!" The green haired boy nodded as he held his arms out in front of him. He may not have Yanagi's level of control, but this was well within his capabilities. He took a second to clear his mind before getting to work. As gently as possible, Midoriya lifted the man onto the gurney and set him down without any unnecessary shaking. Once his job was done, the paramedic was quick to strap him down and rush him over to a nearby ambulance.

"Thank you, young man." The guy placed a hand on his shoulder as he passed by.

"Alright, we still have some people with less severe injuries that need to get bandaged up. You two can help out."

"Skywalker, get over here!" Blizzard suddenly called out to Midoriya from above the rubble. The boy hesitated for a moment as he looked back his classmate and the man. Apparently, Tokage seemed to be able to read his mind and gave him a quick thumbs up.

"We got this."

"Right." Midoriya simply said before flying over to where his mentor was.

"We need to get going, young lady. Come on."

"Yes, sir!"

Once Midoriya was next to Blizzard, the woman wasted no time in getting down to business. She pointed over to a nearby mound where the woman from before was pulling the flames from around the area. "Once Ember is done snuffing out those fires, the two of us are going to move these rocks."

"Yes ma'am."

A few seconds passed before the fire was handled and the woman gave her a thumbs up. "Good to go, boss!"

With that, the two green haired telekinetics quickly went to work and lifted the rubble into the air. Midoriya himself was able to lift six rather hug pieces closer to the road, but Blizzard moved nearly a third of the mound by herself. The duo spent the next few minutes moving the debris before the woman now identified as Ember shouted at them to stop.

"There's still someone trapped inside!"

The two quickly descended upon her position and were met with the sight of young looking woman crouched underneath a slab of stone. From the looks of it, she was barely a meter away from being crushed by object.

"I'll lift that slab from above her." Midoriya started to activate his quirk, but was stopped when Blizzard put her hand in front of his face.

"When dealing with rescue operations it's never a good idea to haphazardly start moving things around. You don't know if disturbing the scene could cause a chain reaction." She told him.

"Shit, s-sorry."

"It's fine, just try and remember that from now on." The green haired heroine said before turning back to the woman. "Ma'am, are injured?! Do you feel any pain?! Are you able to move?!"

"No! I think I'm okay!" She shouted back in a frightened tone.

"I'm going to levitate you from out of there. Please refrain from any unnecessary movements and do your best to remain calm!"

"O-okay!"

True to her word, Blizzard used her quirk to safely float the woman over to them. She seemed to be perfectly fine other than the layer of grime all over her body. Which meant that she must've had a guardian angel looking out for her. "Skywalker, please escort her over to the triage area. Me and Ember can take over from here."

"Yes ma'am."

"Thank you Blizzard, you're truly amazing!"

"As long as you're okay, I don't need any thanks. Please follow Skywalker and get yourself checked out."

Midoriya was amazed at how composed the woman was in all of this madness. He himself was feeling a bit on edge after seeing all of this chaos, but she was as cool as ice. If he ever needed an example on how a hero should act in a crisis, this was it.

The green haired boy quickly escorted the woman back to where he was standing only a few minutes ago and walked her over to go get looked at by the paramedics.

While that was going on, Tokage was hard at work assisting wherever she could. She may have had some basic first aid training from Kayama, but now she knew that she needed to brush up on her skills. While Midoriya and his mentor were moving debris, she had spent the last few minutes wrapping bandages and splinting broken bones. The girl typically wasn't a nervous person, but right now she was feeling the pressure of the situation. She was now regretting her earlier comment about not getting to see any action.

"Alright, I think that should do it for now. Thanks hero." One of the paramedics told her in a relieved tone.

"I'm just glad I could help." She gave him a short smile.

The next thirty minutes were spent cleaning up the area and treating anyone else that was pulled out of the rubble. While Blizzard and Midoriya were busy clearing out debris, Edgeshot was using his quirk to get into tight spaces and search for anyone else that was still trapped. Everything seemed to be going relatively well until Blizzard placed a hand a boy's shoulder and looked at him with a serious expression.

"Midoriya-kun, I want you to head back over to where your classmate is and stay there until I say otherwise."

The boy couldn't help the look of confusion that crossed his face at the woman's words. Sure she was powerful, but with the two of them they would be able to clean things up a lot faster. "B-but-"

"Just go, there's something here that I don't want you to see."

All he did was nod and fly back over to where Tokage was still treating minor injuries before the woman called over to Ember.

"What's up boss? Why'd you send the kid away?" The purple eyed woman asked.

Instead of a verbal response, Blizzard simply pointed over to a nearby mound. Ember's eyes tracked to where her finger was leading to and her heart almost stopped when she noticed a human arm sticking out from underneath a rather large bolder about twenty meters in front of them.

"Dammit!"

"It's still too early for the boy to be exposed to something like that. He may be a hero in training, but he's still just a kid." The green haired woman said in a soft tone.

"Yeah...I can't argue with you there."

"Do me a favor and go find a blanket. And let one of the crews know about what we found and send them over here."

"Yeah, no problem."

* * *

If Midoriya and Tokage ever needed a reality check on just what kind of career field they were aspiring to, then this was definitely it.

Once the rescue and the clean up were finished, it was hard for either of the two students to miss the seventeen black bags laying under a makeshift tent in the distance. In truth, with everything going on the possibility of there being any deceased didn't even occur to either of the two teenagers before seeing it for themselves. Luckily neither of them were subjected to having to bare witness to what shape those unfortunate souls were in before being covered up. But that did little to brighten their moods.

"Man, talk about one hell of a first day." Tokage let out while sitting down on the curb.

"Yeah…" An equally dejected Midoriya agreed while taking the spot next to her and removing his helmet.

"I guess this is the kind of thing we're gonna have to get used to once we go pro."

"Looks that way."

"Edgeshot and Blizzard must be used to this kind of thing by now. It's kind of crazy, huh? Seeing it on the news is one thing, but being right here in the thick of it is a whole different monster."

"No kidding."

"Still, you seemed to be a pretty big help out there." The girl gave him a bit of a smirk.

"So were you." He turned to her with a slight grin of his own. "You did a good job helping out and treating those injuries. You said that you've have first aid training before?"

"Yeah, Aunt Nemuri and my dad taught me some stuff, but nothing official. It was mainly because of how my quirk works but also because it's a valuable skill to have."

"That makes a lot of sense."

"If you want, I could teach you a thing or two. You'll just have to pay a small fee." She said with a slightly joking tone. In her opinion, it was best to lighten up the mood whenever possible. And right now was as good a time as any.

"A-and what is that?"

"Eh, I don't know. I'll think of something later."

Just before he could respond, the two students were called over by Edgeshot, Blizzard and Ember who were making their way over to them. Now that they weren't in the middle of a rescue operation, Midoriya was finally able to take in the purple eyed woman's appearance. She looked to be the same height as him, but she had a considerable level of muscle on her body.

"What's up rookie? We haven't had the chance to formally introduce ourselves yet. I'm Madoka Ozehana, but I go by Ember when I'm on duty."

"It's nice to meet you." The boy bowed.

"Ember here recently transferred over to my agency, but she's very good at what she does. She spends most of her time working with the local fire departments where her quirk is most useful. You'll be seeing her around quite a bit during your stay." Blizzard explained.

"That's pretty cool, what's your quirk if you don't mind me asking?"

"I call it '_flame control'_, I can't create fires but I can control them. I mostly use it to snuff out flames that are too hard to get under control." Ember said.

"That's pretty useful for rescue operations." Tokage commented.

"Indeed."

Edgeshot was next to voice his opinion. "You two did a good job in assisting the recovery and clean up. I'm sorry you had to be exposed to such a thing on your first day, but this is the type of work you have to get used to if you want to become a pro."

"We understand sir."

"Good." Blizzard smiled. "Me and Edgeshot were talking and we think it would be best if we cut our patrols short for the day and rest up at the agency. We wanted to talk to you about what happened here."

"Speaking of which." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user interjected. "What caused the building to collapse?"

"From the information that we were told, it was a suicide bomber."

A chill went down the two teenagers spines after hearing that. Villains attacks were a pretty common nowadays, but this was in the catergory of actual terrorism. Sure, attacks such as this weren't as frequent as they were in the past. But the fact that it happened was a bit alarming.

"The police have everything under control so there's nothing more for us to do. We'll be heading back to Blizzard's agency to cool off and discuss how we'll proceed from here."

"What do you mean?" Midoriya tilted his head in confusion.

"The two of us have been talking and we think it would be a good idea to team up for the remainder of your internships. Whatever training needs to be done will be conducted in the mornings and then we'll meet up in the afternoons to join forces."

"Seriously?!" The two greenettes blurted out simultaneously.

"It's a better way for you students to get some more experience and teaming up is more efficient. Sure, most pros prefer to go solo nowadays. But it never hurts to learn from two heroes rather than one."

"We'll discuss this further back at the agency over a meal. For now, we should get going. Do you want to come with us, Ember?" Blizzard asked her partner.

"No, I'm heading back over to the station just in case another call comes in before the end of my shift. I'll be back later." The purple eyed woman replied.

"Good, I'll see you later." Blizzard smiled before levitating off the ground and floating Edgeshot by her side. Prompting Tokage to resume her earlier position and jump on Midoriya's back. Except this time, the boy didn't even bother fighting it.

With one last wave, the group of four made their back to agency for some much needed rest and relaxation.

* * *

Back at the agency, the group had just made their way into the building. Tokage was admittedly impressed with the overall layout of the place and how extravagant everything looked. Edgeshot's agency had the whole "ninja" vibe, but Blizzard's had more of "modern Japanese" feel to it.

Once inside, the four of them went to the green haired woman's office and wasted no time digging into their prepared meals. For Midoriya and Tokage, seeing the number five hero without his signature mask was quite the shock. They were certain that tabloids across the country would pay top dollar to get a snapshot of the guy in his current state. At least now they could say that they were part of the select few who got to see it in person.

"This food is wonderful, Blizzard. Please give my compliments to the chef." Kamihara said in between bites.

"I'll be sure to pass the word on." Katsuragi smiled.

"Yeah, the food is amazing!" Tokage added.

"Thank you. So, you and Midoriya-kun are classmates?"

"Sure are!"

"Well, the fact that you two know each other should be beneficial for the duration of this week. It's fortunate that we ran into each other."

"Y-yeah." Midoriya nervously nodded.

"You certainly left quite an impression during the Sports Festival, Midoriya-san. You completely routed Endeavor's son and Ingenium's little brother. I wouldn't be surprised if you received offers from a few of the heroes in the top ten."

"I-I did." The boy admitted. "A few of the top heroes sent me a request, but this was the best place for me to come."

"I agree." The silver haired man nodded. "Your match against that Bakugou boy was also quite the spectacle."

Tokage noticed the way the boy's hands seemed to tense up at the mention of his fight with Bakugou. She knew it was a bit of a sore spot for him, so she quickly tried to think up a way to change the topic. However, Katsuragi was first to speak.

"Yes, Midoriya-kun did put on a good display. He showcased his talents and performed rather admirably if I do say so myself."

"Word on the street is that Best Jeanist took on that Bakugou boy as an intern. I know he has a track record for reforming troubled youths, but he might have his hands full with that one. Did you see the way had to be chained up like some wild beast?"

"Yes, it was rather unsettling to look at."

Midoriya had to wonder if he was transported to some alternate reality. Were there actually people who didn't approve of Bakugou's behavior? This may have been the first time in his entire life that he's heard an adult not outright praise the boy for simply being amazing. Maybe there was some hope for this world after all.

"The guy's total asshat. Everyone in our class pretty much agrees that Moptop should've won." Tokage smiled at her green haired companion.

All Midoriya could do was blush at what he felt was an undeserved compliment. Prompting the girl to let out a quick laugh at seeing him get flustered.

"S-so, how has your internship been going so far?" The boy deflected.

"Pretty good. Edgeshot gave me a valuable lesson this morning on what to do when it comes to using my quirk in a fight. I already have a couple ideas on how I can improve that I'm itching to try out."

"I'm glad to see that you're taking my lessons to heart and already thinking of ways to apply them."

"What about you guys?"

"Me and Fubuki-san had a sparring match earlier this morning. It was...over pretty quickly. I honestly didn't stand a chance."

"That must've been something to see." Tokage was curious how a match between the two of them would look. Usually, the boy could rely on his flying to stay out of everyone's reach. But based on what she saw earlier, Katsuragi was more than a match for him. In her mind, she imagined some type of aerial battle with random objects flying all over the place.

"Don't sell yourself short Midoriya-kun, you're very talented. The fact that you can fly so expertly at your age is something to be proud of. It's a skill that very few people with quirks like ours can obtain and even then it's not an easy one to master."

"To be honest, he reminds a bit of your older sister. I can still remember her zipping through the air like a rocket while taking down criminals. I doubt that even Hawks could match her in terms of speed." Kamihara joked.

Suddenly, the green haired woman's expression shifted ever so slightly from a smile into a bit a frown. It took a second, but the silver haired man quickly realized his verbal folly and immediately apologized for bringing up the topic up. "I apologize, Blizzard. I know your sister's disappearance must still be hard on you."

You could practically feel the energy in the entire room shift for a brief moment. The two students were well aware of the story behind the heroine in question. Well, lack of story would be a better description. As far as they knew, one day the former number four heroine simply vanished. In the two years since she's been gone, not a single trace of her had been found. There was no doubt in Midoriya's mind that something like that was hard on a family member. Especially since he had an idea of how what kind of effect it could have.

"Don't worry yourself over it." The woman waved off. "But you are correct, if anything Midoriya-kun has the potential to be just as strong as she was. Once he fine tunes his quirk a bit, he'll be a force to be reckoned with."

Hearing that made the boy's heart flutter a little bit. The idea of him being in the same ring as Tornado was almost inconceivable in his mind. But hearing those words come from the person who probably knew her the best forced a bit redness onto his cheeks.

"Oh man, that's some pretty high praise there Moptop."

"I can agree with that assessment. But Tokage-san also has the potential to be a top ranked hero herself. I'm sure that once she finds more uses for her quirk, she'll be trouble for anyone that dares cross her path." Kamihara added while looking to his student.

"Oh stop it, you're gonna make me blush~." The girl feigned embarrassment while silently hoping he would praise her a bit more.

The group spent the next hour chit-chatting and going over their schedule for the remainder of the week. Once things were finally set in stone, Kamihara and Tokage decided to take their leave so that they could get an early start on the next day. But before their departure, the girl took the opportunity to have one last conversation with her friend.

"I'm totally looking forward to tomorrow _partner_!" She said with a toothy smirk while throwing an arm over his shoulder.

"Y-yeah."

"I wanted to hang out with you a bit more and now we get the chance to work together for the rest of the week. Isn't that sweet?"

"Yeah, you're right. It'll be good to be around a classmate during the week."

"And you get the pleasure of being my personal mode of transportation, isn't that great...I-zu-ku?" She further teased by doing her best Kayama impersonation and adding a slight bit of sultriness into her voice. Tokage was quick to notice the confused look on his face at hearing her call him by his first name and gave a quick giggle. "What? I call all my friends by their first names. Or do you actually prefer "Moptop"?"

"You...really think of me as a friend?" He whispered in a weird tone. Somewhere between shock and confusion.

"Why wouldn't I? We've already hung out and you're a pretty cool guy." Was her reply. Admittedly, she was a bit surprised at hearing that. She knew the guy didn't have a lot of friends but it wasn't that weird was it?

"Oh…"

"I swear, one of these days I'll get you to come out of that shell of your's. The whole "mystery boy" shtick is cool and all, but you're way too cute for that."

Midoriya's face quickly heated up and Tokage had to stop herself from passing out with how hard she started laughing. Eventually the girl and her mentor made their exit, leaving the boy to re-wire his brain after once again being on the receiving end of her teasing.

"She seems really into you." Katsuragi suddenly said, causing the boy to remember that the woman was still behind him.

"S-s-she' just m-messing around." He quickly retorted while turning away from the woman.

"I'm not too sure about that."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh nothing…" The woman said while trying to suppress a smile. "I suggest you hurry and get some rest. We're starting your training bright and early tomorrow morning."

"What are going to do?"

"We're going to work on your control. I noticed a few things while you were helping me out with the recovery operation and we should address them as soon as possible. So be prepared." Was all she told him before turning around and making her way towards the elevator.

"Yes, ma'am!" The boy gave her a polite boy.

Midoriya had no clue what was instore for him tomorrow morning. But he had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't going to enjoy whatever his mentor had planned.

* * *

**For those of you that want to know what Midoriya's new helmet looks like, it's pretty much the same as the one that the Red Hood (Jason Todd) from DC Comics wears. Except the colors are different. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.**


	14. Internships: Part 4

Waking up before sunrise was something that Midoriya had grown accustomed to by this point in his life. During his training in preparation to get into U.A. he would often spend the early hours of the morning at Dagobah beach. Granted, the fact that he didn't have to worry about going to school during that time certainly helped his early morning routine quite a bit.

As he walked into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth, the boy paused to look himself over in the full sized mirror on the nearby wall. Months of intense weightlifting and physical training had done wonders for his growing body. Not only did he grow a couple of centimeters in height. He now had a decent amount of muscle on his once slender frame that would put his former self to shame.

'_I'm glad I sold all of my old All Might junk to pay for that gym membership.'_ He told himself while taking a couple of seconds to flex in mirror. He knew that he had to look like one of those garden variety douchebags that you'd see flaunting their bodies on television. And he'd be mortified if anyone ever caught him doing something like this. But Midoriya couldn't help himself from admiring how far he had come. He may not have been as muscular as Tetsutetsu or even Bondo, but he still had a respectable physique.

However, there was one thing that the boy absolutely hated about his body. And that was his scars.

The right side of his hip and abdomen was littered with dozens of well-placed, symmetrical lines that he had carved into his own body over the last two years or so. A constant reminder to himself about the person he once was. The boy can still remember the very first time he drew a blade across his skin and the feeling of euphoria that came with it. But aside from his slip up at the start of the year, those moments were very few and far between nowadays.

Yet there was one mark on his body that made him cringe every single time he laid eyes on it. The still visible burn mark on his right shoulder in the shape of a hand print. The scar in question was a constant reminder of what he still considers to be the worst day of his life. And it was destined to plague him for the rest of his days. No matter what he did, the thing seemed determined to stay on his form.

He had tried everything. Ointments, makeup, topical gels, there was even a point where he considered just outright cutting the piece of skin completely off his body altogether. Eventually he just accepted it for what it was and used it as a constant reminder to never let things get as bad as they once were. Thankfully, he had been able to keep this a secret from his mother and everyone else. The last thing he needed was for this to ruin his chances at becoming a hero.

With one last visual inspection, Midoriya went on with his morning routine before heading down to the kitchen area and making himself a light breakfast. He was looking forward to whatever training his mentor had planned for him. And he was determined to do his best.

* * *

_~Super Friends Created~_

_~Itsuka Kendou, Ibara Shiozaki, Pony Tsunotori, Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, Juzo Honenuki, Izuku Midoriya and Reiko Yanagi have been added to the chat.~_

T-Rex: What's up party people!

Dumbbell: Did you seriously name this group "Super Friends"?

T-Rex: Problem?

Dumbbell: Yes

Cross: Greetings everyone!

Fist: So is there a reason why you only added us into this chat and not the entire class?

T-Rex: You guys are pretty much the only people in class that I actually talk to.

Skeleton: Makes sense.

Skeleton: How's everyone's internships going?

T-Rex: Awesome!

Fist: Same

Cross: I've learned quite a bit in only one day.

Dumbbell: Pretty good, but kind of boring.

Apple: Very fun!

Ghost: Good.

Rabbit: Good.

Skeleton: Who are you guys interning with anyway? I didn't get the chance to ask before we all left.

Dumbbell: I'm with Fourth Kind. Kirishima from 1-A is here too.

T-Rex: Oh yeah, that guy with the same quirk as you. What's that like?

Dumbbell: He's pretty cool, but the guy keeps talking about manliness. It's kind of weird.

Cross: I'm working with Kamui Woods. He's been a pleasure to learn under.

Fist: Gunhead for me. We pretty much hit the ground running. He's actually really nice.

Apple: Mt. Lady. Me and Ibara combined together yesterday with our pros.

Ghost: I'm with Yoroi Musha.

Skeleton: The number 8 hero? Holy shit that dude's ancient!

Cross: Language

Ghost: He said that my quirk has a lot of practical uses and has shown me a few interesting tricks. It's been very informative.

T-Rex: That's still pretty awesome though. I'm with Edgeshot. Me and Moptop are actually teaming up for the rest of the week.

Skeleton: That's pretty cool.

T-Rex: We actually got to help with a rescue operation yesterday.

Fist: What happened? I saw on the news that a building got blown up near where you guys are at?

T-Rex: From what we were told it was suicide bomber.

Cross: How dreadful. There were a couple of similar incidents in a few other places from what I've read.

Apple: Super crazy.

Fist: Well I'm glad you guys are alright.

Skeleton: Seriously.

Dumbbell: As much fun as it talking to you guys I gotta run. Me and Kirishima have to spend the morning picking up trash at the park with Fourth Kind.

Dumbbell: (；一_一)

T-Rex: I'm playing the world's smallest violin.

Cross: Same, I have to get ready for the day as well.

Fist: Yeah me too.

Ghost: Agreed.

Rabbit: Same

T-Rex: Good point. Ttyl.

Apple: Have fun!

Skeleton: Talk to you guys later. Go out and do great things! Plus Ultra and all that.

* * *

Midoriya knew that his early morning training session was going to be tough. But he certainly wasn't expecting this.

The boy and his mentor had hit the ground running as soon as they arrived at the junkyard not too long after breakfast. Like Katsuragi had told him the night before, their main focus for today was his control. Midoriya was given the task of re-shaping various pieces of metal while simultaneously floating in the air. On the surface, it seemed pretty simple but that certainly wasn't the case. The green haired woman upped the ante by telling him that every single time his feet hit the ground, he would owe her fifty pushups. And he was already on five hundred in the first ninety minutes.

According to Katsuragi, the best way to improve his time in the air was just by powering through it as long as possible. And with each attempt it became increasingly difficult to maintain. That coupled with the added chore of manipulating pipes into various shapes was pushing him to his limits. Thankfully, the woman was merciful enough to grant him a breather from his training.

"How are you feeling?" Katsuragi asked the boy after creating a comfortable looking chair from some of the nearby scrap metal and a car door.

"Good." He responded with a heavy sigh and a film of sweat on his forehead.

"I know it sucks, but this is the best way to improve your flying. Think of it like weightlifting, the harder you push yourself the easier it will get over time."

"I understand."

"For now, I want to focus on your how many objects you can control at once. You said your limit was six, right?"

"Yes ma'am."

The green haired heroine looked at him for a moment before reaching into her backpack and pulling out a box of spoons from one of the pockets and setting them on the ground in front of him. Midoriya tilted his head in curiosity at what she was planning for him to do.

"Lift up as many of those as you can." She ordered while leaning forward in her seat.

The boy did as he was told and one-by-one lifted six of the spoons off the ground and levitating them in front of his face.

"I thought so." She commented.

"What is it?"

"Tell me, when you did that did you try to lift each spoon up one-by-one?"

"Y-yeah." He nodded.

"Well that's your problem."

"Huh?"

Katsuragi proceeded to lift the rest of the spoons into the air, twenty-four separate ones in total. Needless to say, Midoriya was pretty amazed by this. He thought that Yanagi's control was impressive, but this was in a whole other league.

"There's a trick to handling bigger loads that my sister taught me when I was still in middle school. To be honest, I can only manipulate ten different items if I focus on them individually. But there's a way to work around that." The woman began explaining.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Instead of focusing on each object individually, try moving them in one giant cluster. You won't be able to freely manipulate each object on their own, but it's a useful way to move heavy loads. I noticed yesterday that you were limiting yourself but this is how I work around stuff like that."

Midoriya took a couple of seconds to jot down in his: "**Quirk Analysis: Izuku Midoriya"** notebook before turning his attention back to the kitchen utensils. In his mind, it made a lot of sense. Up until this point he had been strictly focused on moving objects one by one. He assumed that over time he would be able to gradually increase his limit and that method had been working so far. But this just made a lot more sense. No wonder the woman was able to lift such massive loads during the recovery operation.

"Alright!" The boy half-shouted with a determined look on his face while focusing on the spoons.

Midoriya took a moment to clear his mind and put her words into action. Over the course of the next minute or so, he tried his hardest to move all of them at once, but the most he was able to do was barely lift the set of kitchen utensils off the ground. Eventually, he gave up and let himself take a couple of breaths.

"You're still focusing on each individual spoon." The green haired woman stated while readjusting herself in the makeshift chair. "Try this. Inside your mind, imagine your quirk as one giant ball around the spoons. Picture some type of "force field" surrounding the spoons and use that method as a way to move them."

"O-okay."

Once again, the boy brought his attention back to the spoons and put Katsuragi's words into action. Inside of his head, he imagined a ball just big enough to encompass the kitchen utensils and placed it around them. Admittedly, it was hard trying to get the picture inside of his head. But once he was able to do it, Midoriya successfully levitated the entire group off the ground and in front of his face. Like his mentor previously stated it was impossible to move any individual spoon by itself. But he was able to float them around in one singular group relatively easily.

'_That wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.'_ Midoriya thought to himself only seconds before the entire cluster dropped. Apparently, something like this required a lot of control to maintain. Losing focus for even half a second broke his hold on them.

'_This kid is amazing.'_ Katsuragi smiled at her student's progress. She half expected him to fail on the first try like she did when she first learned of this method.

"You truly are talented Midoriya-kun. You have a much better grasp on your power than I did at your age. I'm surprised you weren't able to do something like already."

"Well I haven't had my quirk for very long so I'm still learning how to apply it." The boy absentmindedly replied before clasping a hand over his mouth. '_Dammit!'_

The green haired heroine tilted her head and gave him a confused look after hearing that. "What do you mean?"

Midoriya was now mentally kicking himself for letting that information slip. He had been doing well so far in not letting anyone know that he's had his quirk for less than a year. But now he just messed up big time. Seeing as he now couldn't take his words back, the boy decided to just roll with it and stick to his usual story.

"O-oh w-w-well, I'm kind of a late bloomer. My quirk didn't manifest u-until a little under a year ago."

"Seriously?" Katsuragi inquired. She was by no means an expert on quirks, but developing one so late was a rarity. "That's odd, with how strong you are I would've assumed you've had it your entire life."

"Yeah, I was pretty surprised m-myself when it finally came in."

"Wow…so you thought you were quirkless all that time? I'm sorry to hear that." She said in a somber tone. The woman was well aware of how those without quirks were treated in today's society. If their suicides rates were any indication, then the boy must've had it rough growing up.

"Y-yeah, growing up wasn't really all that great."

"In any case, that just makes you even more impressive in my eyes. Having your quirk for less than a year and already being able to do as much as you can is nothing short of amazing. It took me years to learn how to fly at your level. Before that, I could barely keep myself in the air for a few minutes without falling on my face."

Midoriya felt his heart flutter a bit at Katsuragi's praise. Being complimented like this was something that he didn't think he'll ever really get used to. But it still felt good to have his hard work acknowledged. He was about to tell her thank you, but something that she said finally clicked in his mind.

"Wait, so you were pretty much unable to fly before then?"

"Not entirely."

"What do you mean?"

"I learned a neat little trick to move through the air when I was still in high school." She told him before standing up and calling another broken car door over to her. Midoriya watched as the woman jumped on top of it and began moving through the area with an impressive amount of skill. If he had to make a comparison, it was like the woman was snowboarding. This was his first time seeing her do something like that.

"I call it "air surfing". I don't really do this a lot nowadays since I've improved my mobility. But it still has its uses. If anything, you can use whatever you ride on as an extra weapon to take down criminals."

"Wow." Was all the boy managed to say. Something like this was definitely useful to use. As his mind began running over all the practical applications of this a thought popped into his head. If someone with a quirk similar to theirs knew how to do this, then it could help them out tremendously when battling villains.

"Uh, Fubuki-san?"

"Hmm?"

"Would it be okay if I told one of my classmates about this? I think it would help her out a lot."

"Fine with me, it's not like I have it trademarked or anything."

"Thank you."

"You can tell her about it after we're done here. For now, your break is over so let's get back to it. We only have a few hours before we need to meet up with Edgeshot and Tokage-san and there's still a few things that I want to teach you."

"Yes ma'am!" The boy almost cheered as the green haired duo resumed their raining from earlier.

* * *

While Midoriya was hard at work improving on his skillset, Tokage was doing the same. The green haired girl was currently taking a knee on the ground while lightly painting with a not-so-subtle amount of sweat on her face.

"Do you need to take a breather?" Kamihara asked her in with a slight bit of concern in his voice.

"No, I'm good to go again." She shook her head before reactivating her quirk and spreading herself out across the room and around her mentor.

"Alright, but after this we're taking a break."

The number five hero watched as various pieces of his student slowly began rotating around him. There were still quite a few openings in this new move of hers. But considering the fact that she thought of it just yesterday, he was impressed with how far she had come along.

The idea itself was simple but very effective once put into practice. "Scale Storm" as the girl called it, was a move where she would separate herself into as many pieces as possible and use them to surround her opponent. This, along with rotating herself at top speed would not only distract whoever got caught up in the attack. It would also stop them from escaping.

Her one-sided match with the pro yesterday showed Tokage that she couldn't rely on brute force and cheap tricks as much as she would like when it came to a fight. She needed a way to contain people and take them out.

"This is good." Kamihara commented as Tokage's body began rotating her pieces faster and faster. '_A little more fine tuning and this would be a problem for anyone.'_

'_Damn, this is still too hard to maintain for long!'_ The girl's floating head thought from above the whirlwind of flesh. Moving her body like this in one direction was pretty easy, but the first issue came with stamina. And the fact that she had been doing this for the last hour wasn't helping at all. '_I just need to wait for an opening!'_

Luckily for the girl, her wish had been granted when Kamihara turned his head. As fast as she could, Tokage focused on one of her forearms and sent it towards the pro hero's gut. But like all the times before, he was easily able to dodge it. With that failed attack, Tokage had officially hit her limit and pieced her body back together. The girl flopping down on the ground to catch her breath.

"Dammit!" She groaned in annoyance.

"The moment before you attack you slow down a considerable amount. It's a good indicator that you're about to strike."

"Yeah, I know…" She responded. Part two of this new move of hers is where the real issue came. Moving her body in one direction was easy enough, but trying to send things in different directions was a challenge. She may have complete control over all of her pieces, but doing something like that was almost as bad as trying to look both left and right at the same time. The last time she tried something like that she caused herself a headache due to the information overload.

"Still, this is quite remarkable. In my opinion if you just to practice it a bit more, it won't be long before it's perfected."

"Thanks." She gave the man a tired smile.

"Let's take ten minutes so you can recover. It's not a good idea to tire yourself out before going on patrol this afternoon." He said while taking up a spot on the ground a couple of meters in front of her.

The silver haired man let the silence linger a bit longer before striking up a conversation with her.

"So Tokage-san tell me. What inspired you to become a hero?"

The greenette racked her brain for a moment as she tried to find the right words. "Well…it's just something that I've always wanted to do y'know. I guess like most kids, I grew up watching heroes save people and wanted to that."

"That's understandable."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not like those guys who just want to go out and beat people up. I mean…I guess that's part of the reason why I want to go into rescue work. I'd rather leave all that flashy stuff to guys like you and All Might."

"Ah yes, you did mention that your end goal was to be a rescue hero." The man nodded while taking a sip from his teacup that magically appeared from out of nowhere. "Why that route and not the more congenital? Your quirk is perfect for fighting in my opinion."

"Yeah…that's what people have been telling me, but that's just not what I want to do." The girl let out with a bit of a sigh. "I just want to save people at the end of the day. And yesterday was kind of an eye opener on how much I need to improve if I want to be an effective rescue hero."

"It's quite refreshing to hear that from someone your age. Most kids just want a reason to use their quirks freely and gain attention. Not many go into the hero business with noble intentions."

"Oh yeah, you don't have to tell me twice." She flashed the man a toothy smirk. Tokage wasn't one to judge people's motivations for aspiring to become a hero. But there were always people out there who joined the career field with less than desirable intentions.

"Well if you ask me, I think you can become an effective rescue hero. Try to remember that nothing about this job is cut and dry. People like Blizzard and Thirteen may be able to handle massive jobs and natural disasters. But not every situation requires something so flashy."

"I understand, sir."

"Good." The man smiled underneath his mask as he stood up. "I say we hold off on practicing your move for now and take some time for me to show you some good ways to distract an opponent during a battle."

"Sounds good to me!" Tokage cheered before jumping to her feet and giving the man a wide grin.

* * *

It almost seemed like a perfect day when the group of heroes and interns finally met up for their afternoon outing. The sun was shining, the temperature was perfect and there was just enough cloud cover to provide a comfortable bit of shade.

The group of four wasted no time getting to work and spent the first hour patrolling their agreed upon route. There were quite a few people out and about today, and there was no shortage of cheers and greetings from fans and passerby's.

"We love you Edgeshot!"

"You too Blizzard!"

"Who are those other two?"

"I think I recognize that girl from the U.A. Sports Festival."

"Oh yeah, her quirk is wild as hell!"

"I don't recognize that masked guy though. Maybe he's Blizzard new sidekick?"

Tokage decided to bask in the moment and gave the onlookers a quick wave and a smile. Fame wasn't her number one priority when it comes to becoming a hero. But it certainly felt good to get recognized. Midoriya on the other hand was glad that no one could see his face under his helmet. Otherwise they would've seen the notable amount of blush on his freckled cheeks.

"It's kind of weird having a bunch of random people know who you are." Tokage said as they turned the corner.

"I agree, but it's something that you'll have to get used to." Edgeshot told her.

"Remember to not let stuff like this go to your head." Blizzard was the next to speak. "A lot of young heroes get too wrapped up in the fame that comes with our line of work. I'll admit that after my debut I got pretty overwhelmed with all of the attention."

"Oh yeah, I remember that." Midoriya stated.

It was about five years ago when the green haired heroine made her splash onto the hero scene. She and Tornado saved a group of two-hundred passengers stranded on a sinking ship in Tokyo Bay. It was pretty big news story for a few weeks and was the event that earned the siblings the title of "Psychic Sisters".

"Yes, it was my first big job after graduating from U.A.. If I remember correctly, I only had my pro hero license for about a month when that happened."

"Wow, I didn't know you went to U.A." Tokage looked to the woman. "I don't remember ever seeing you participate in the Sports Festival."

"I wouldn't doubt it. It _was_ a few years ago, and the furthest I ever got was the semi-finals in the tournament stage in my second year."

"I guess I'm the odd one out." The silver haired man joked.

"Where'd you go to school at, sir?"

"I went to Ketsubutsu. Your homeroom teacher Vlad King went there around the same time I did if I remember correctly."

"Wow, small world." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user laughed.

Just before anyone else could comment, a loud scream from about eighty meters in front of them caught their attention. The group looked ahead to see a young man dressed in school uniform sprinting out of a nearby alley. The boy had jet black hair styled in a bowl cut and pink eyes. And from the looks of it, he was in a hurry.

'_Is that…'_ Midoriya thought once the recognition set in. Before he called out the person's name, a group of students in similar uniforms came from the same alleyway with a set of sadistic looks on their faces.

"Get back here you freak!" A girl with red hair shouted at the boy.

"What the hell is goi-" Edgeshot's inquiry was cut off when Midoriya suddenly flew passed him and made a beeline straight for the boy.

"Skywalker!" Blizzard called out.

In the blink of an eye, the green haired boy was already down the road and called out to the person being chased. "Unohana-san!"

The black haired teen looked up and a sense of relief washed over his features at the sight of this unknown hero. "Help! These guys are after me!" He shouted in desperation.

Midoriya wasted no time and activated his quirk on the group of pursuers. The boy lifted the four of them off the ground and held them in place just before they could get within arm's reach of their target.

"Hey, what the hell's the big idea?!" The redhead said while trying to break free of his hold.

"Thank you hero." The boy now identified as Unohana bowed at Midoriya with a shaky grin.

"Are you alright, Unohana-san?"

"You know me?" The black haired boy tilted his head in confusion before the voice finally registered in his head. "Wait, are you Mido-"

"What's going on here?" Blizzard asked as her and the others ran up to group. The green haired woman wanted to be mad at her student for jumping into a situation without a second thought. But she was impressed at how fast he reacted to getting to someone in trouble. As she took a moment to look over the group of students, she couldn't help but notice the layer of dirt on Unohana's uniform. That along with what looked like green liquid seeping down from his hair. "Explain."

"These guys were chasing me. I barely managed to shake them a few blocks ago but they kept coming after me."

"Oh really now?" Edgeshot folded his arms while looking to airborne students.

"He's lying!" A boy with green scales on his face retorted

.

"So why don't you enlighten us on what's going on?"

A nervous sweat suddenly formed on their faces as they tried to think of an excuse. "T-that loser bumped into me and spilled my smoothie. And then he took off without even apologizing!"

"You don't really expect us to believe that, do you?" Tokage asked after hearing such an obvious lie.

"It's the truth!"

"Like hell it is!" Unohana shouted back. "That jerk with the scales on his face threw it on me after we got out of school and then they all started chasing me. They've been coming after me ever since the school year started."

"Shut up, you damn freak!"

"I suggest you lower your tone before I get angry." Blizzard snapped at the redhead, causing the girl to clamp her mouth shut.

"Will someone please tell us what really started this whole mess?"

"These guys have been coming after me ever since school started. They're just a bunch of bullies who think it's okay to pick on the quirkless kid."

Everything seemed to stop for a moment as the group of heroes processed the boy's words. Based on what they had just been told, along with his appearance, it was safe to assume that this wasn't too far from the truth. Tokage immediately felt something well up in her chest and she had to stop herself from making a comment. While that was happening, Midoriya chose to stay silent.

"Y'know, this could be considered assault if the police were to get involved. If he wanted to, this boy could press charges on all of you and you'd face some serious consequences." Blizzard spoke.

"You're going to believe this guy instead of us?"

"We have no reason not to." The masked man interjected.

"The optics are rather incriminating. This boy does look to be roughed up a bit while you children don't. If I didn't know any better, I'd say more than just a simple accidental collision took place. If he were to press charges, I wouldn't blame him."

The group of students all stayed silent while giving each other a set of concerned looks. They were smart enough to realize that the situation didn't look good for them and the last thing they wanted was to go to jail for committing a crime.

"What do you say…"

"Unohana."

"Well Unohana-san, what do you think we should do with these hooligans?"

The boy looked at his classmates for a moment before letting out a heavy sigh. "As much as I want to, it's not like anything will actually happen to them besides a slap on the wrist. As long as they're not chasing me then I'm fine."

Something about the way he said that seemed loaded to Tokage. Sure she doubted that this group of jerks would face hard time for something as simple as this. But why did he think that nothing was going to happen to them? This Unohana guy was obviously the victim here.

"Well today is your lucky day. We'll let you off with a warning."

"T-thanks Edgeshot." The scaled teen said.

"However, we _will_ be getting all of your names and what school you go to. I have a few contacts with the local precinct and I'll make sure that they keep an ear to the ground. And I will personally be following up on this. If I hear anything about the four of you in the future, you better believe that there will be hell to pay." Blizzard followed up with an intense glare.

While the two heroes were getting the students information Midoriya and Tokage were helping Unohana wipe the dirt off his uniform. Although she was glad that they were able to resolve the situation quickly, the girl was a bit annoyed that those jerks were pretty much getting off scot-free.

"That should be all of it. Are you sure that you're okay?" Midoriya asked in a concerned voice.

"Yeah...I'm used to it. Thanks Midoriya-kun." The boy waved off after wiping the last bit of liquid from his hair. Seeing as there was no point in keeping it on, Midoriya elected to remove his helmet so that the boy could see his face.

"You know each other?" Tokage asked in a curious tone.

"Yeah!" Unohana smiled. "Midoriya-kun volunteers at the orphanage that I live at. He helps me out all the time when I'm having trouble with English."

"Really?" Tokage glanced at her classmate.

"Yeah, he's the best! He's always helping out with chores and stuff too. Dude, I didn't know that you were going to be in this area. I remember you saying that you were going to be busy with your internship this week, but you didn't tell me that you'd be working with Blizzard of all people."

"I-I guess I forgot to m-mention it." Midoriya slightly blushed.

"Wow Moptop, you really are made of puppies and sunshine." The girl laughed.

"Thanks again for helping me out man, you really saved my ass."

"It was no trouble at all, really."

"So do those guys come after you like that all the time?"

"Unfortunately." The boy sighed. "They've been on my case ever since middle school."

"All because you don't have a quirk?"

"That _and_ I get way better grades than they do. They were mad because I messed up the grading curve on our last exam and one of them isn't doing too hot in class. It just comes with the territory, y'know?" The boy chuckled a bit before extending out his hand. "I haven't gotten the chance to properly introduce myself, I'm Sasuke Unohana. It's nice to meet you!"

As Tokage went to shake the boy's hand she noticed two things. The first was the smile that he had on his face. It was the same kind of smile that Midoriya had given her a couple of times during school. The kind that a person gives you when they're not being truly honest.

The second was the one that made her pause for a brief moment. When she looked at the boy's hand, under his sleeve she noticed the series of clean looking cuts on the underside of wrist. Tokage had to hold in a gasp at the sight of this and did her best to pretend like she hadn't noticed.

"I-I'm Setsuna Tokage, Moptop here is my classmate."

"Seriously? That's awesome!"

"So have you two known each other for long?"

The two boys shared a quick look with one another and seemed to have some type of silent conversation right before her very eyes. Tokage couldn't help but notice the slight bit of tension in the air before the black haired teen answered her question.

"We ran into each other a while back."

"H-he helped me out and I've been volunteering at the orphanage ever since." Midoriya added on. Thankfully. The boy didn't go any further than that short explanation.

"Cool."

"Well, thanks for helping out back there. Sorry you guys had to go through all the trouble on my account. I know heroes are super busy and all."

"It's what heroes are supposed to do after all." Blizzard spoke up after the two heroes rejoined the group.

"Well I need to hurry up before I miss my train. I'll see you around, Midoriya-kun. Thanks again for all the help!"

"Yeah, I'll see you later." The green haired teen waved.

With that, Unohana made his way down the street in the direction of the train station. Midoriya was still worried about the boy's safety. But he put that to the side for now and made a mental note to contact him after their patrol was done just made sure that he was okay.

After a quick chat about what happened, the group of heroes and students went on with their duties for the day. For the remainder of the afternoon, Tokage couldn't help but notice how quiet Midoriya was being. Obviously something about that whole interaction seemed to be bothering him. But the girl elected to hold off on talking to him about until later that day.

* * *

Whip: How's your internship going?

T-Rex: Awesome! We just got finished with our patrol. Edgeshot's just as cool as I thought he'd be and I've already come up with a new move.

Whip: Well, I'm glad to hear that you're doing well. Although I'm still a bit heartbroken that you didn't accept my offer.

Whip: But if you don't want to spend time with me I understand.

Whip: (TT_TT)

T-Rex: Save the alligator tears for dad when you want him to make teriyaki salmon.

Whip: You're so mean!

T-Rex: Plus, I couldn't just not accept an offer from the number five hero. I need to expand my worldview if I'm going to become a pro.

T-Rex: Oh yeah, we're also teaming up with Moptop and Blizzard for the rest of the week. Pretty awesome, right!

Whip: Oh dear…you finally get to spend some quality time with your boytoy outside of class? How interesting….

Whip: Just make sure you use protection if you get into any trouble.

Whip: Or don't.

Whip: It is more fun that way….

T-Rex: Speaking from personal experience?

Whip: Quite the mouth you have there young lady.

T-Rex: I learned from the best.

T-Rex: ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯.

Whip: Indeed.

Whip: Well I just wanted to check up on you. Stay safe and don't do anything I wouldn't.

T-Rex: That leaves me a lot of gray area to work with.

Whip: Such sassiness.

T-Rex: Ttyl.

Whip: Have fun!

* * *

Once their hero duties for the day were done, the group chose to relax for a bit back the Blizzard Agency. Katsuragi and Kamihara both decided to give their students a break while they filed the last bit of paperwork for all the jobs that they managed to complete.

This respite was exactly what Tokage needed to get some alone time with her favorite green haired cinnamon roll of classmate. The two greenettes were currently lounging in the agency's rest area while snacking on some fruit they got from the cafeteria. Never one to miss an opportunity, the girl made sure to sit as close to him as possible on the large green sofa. Not so much so that they would be touching. But enough to ruffle his feathers a bit.

"Pretty fun day today, huh?" She asked him while taking a sip of her water.

"Yeah." He nervously nodded.

"So…do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"Go ahead."

"It's about that orphanage that you go to. Is everyone there quirkless?"

The boy hesitated for a brief moment before recomposing himself. "Yeah."

"Oh, alright." The girl nodded as she leaned back on the sofa.

This was enough to confuse Midoriya. He was certain that Tokage was going to try and dig a little deeper into it, but apparently that wasn't the case. "Is that all you wanted to know?"

"Oh believe me, I _definitely_ have a few more questions. But I can see that you're not really comfortable talking about it. But I'm assuming that you spending so much time there has something to do with Bakugou calling you "quirkless loser" in school that day."

All Midoriya could do was laugh and try to play it off as best he could. Part of him was thankful that the girl wasn't going to pry into things any more than that. But another part knew that she was going to ask him about it sooner or later.

"Still, it's pretty awesome that you tutor those kids though. That Unohana guy seemed like he really appreciated it."

"To be honest, English is probably the only subject that he struggles in. He's a genius when it comes to everything else. He actually goes to a really nice school in this area and might get a chance to go to college early."

"Good for him. I'm sure with you helping him out he'll have no trouble making it happen. I mean, you are one of the smartest kids in class. Well…besides me anyway." She smiled at him.

Midoriya awkwardly rubbed the back of his head at the compliment. "I-I don't k-know about all that."

"C'mon, you're smart as hell. Let me guess, you graduated top of your class in middle school didn't you?" She said with a playful nudge to the arm.

"A-actually no, I was homeschooled so I wouldn't know how well I stacked up against others." He absentmindedly responded in a joking tone before realizing what he just said.

Tokage sat up from her spot on the sofa and gave him a surprised look. "Wow, I never would've guessed. But...it does make sense. You do seem like the "homeschooled" type." She teased.

"What's t-that supposed to mean?" He quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Well you're quiet, not very social and super nice. You totally have the homeschool kid vibe."

"Oh…"

A few seconds of silence passed between the two before Tokage decided to make herself comfortable. And by comfortable, the girl scooted even closer Midoriya and leaned on his shoulder. Naturally, this caused the boy's face to erupt into an entirely new shade of red at this sudden contact and all the moisture seemed to escape his mouth.

"T-T-Tokage-san?!"

"You don't mind do you? I'm pretty beat and you're really comfortable to lay on." She batted her eyelashes at him.

Midoriya sputtered for a moment before letting out a defeated sigh and accepting his fate. By this point he really should be used to girl's attempts to get a reaction out of him. So instead of fighting he just rolled with it. "It's fine."

"Awesome!" She smirked only moments before a devious idea popped into her head. "Hey, can I ask you another question?"

"Sure…"

"Do you think I'm cute?"

So much confusion hit Midoriya at the time that it made his head spin. The question resonated inside his mind over and over, shutting down his brain for a couple of seconds. Those were words he never expected to hear, much less coming from Tokage.

"What?!" He squeaked out loud enough to hear over at the reception desk.

"It's a pretty simple question, dude. Do you think I'm cute? I think that you're cute, so I wanted to know what you think."

It was in that moment that Midoriya had to strongly consider whether or not he was actually transported to some alternate reality where he was just put into every uncomfortable situation possible. Did she really just ask him that? Out loud? He already knew that Tokage was bold, but this was an entirely different level. How could she possibly expect him to answer something like that?

The boy took a second to re-wire his brain as the girl waited for a response. But to make matters even more ridiculous, Tokage decided to sit up and put her face right in front of his. Two sets of green eyes met each other and the temperature in the room seemed to elevate with each passing second. The girl was giving him an almost predatory like smile and Midoriya quickly found himself folding under the pressure.

"_Y-yes…."_ He whispered out while forcing his eyes shut.

"Good to know." She kept up her toothy smirk while rubbing her hand through his hair. "I'm glad to see that you have good taste."

"Oh my god! You two are so adorable!" I flowery voice squealed out. The two teenagers turned their heads to the where none other than Ozehana gawking at them with heart in her eyes.

"O-O-Ozehana-san!"

"Oh I'm sorry guys, I just got back and noticed you two sitting here. I didn't know that I was interrupting a moment."

"You weren-"

"It's all good. I just wanted to tease Moptop a bit before we left."

"Aww, you even have cute pet names for each other! You guys need to stop before you give me diabetes."

If there was ever a time that Midoirya wished for a quirk that allowed him to turn invisible, now was definitely it. Not only had Tokage succeeded in getting him flustered on a level that he never thought possible. Yet another person was now under the impression that the two were dating. Coincidentally, this was also when the boy realized that overly forward women could be added to the list of his many weaknesses.

Eventually, things calmed down to a more reasonable level ridiculousness when Tokage and Edgeshot finally took their leave to head back to the man's agency. After saying their goodbyes, Katsuragi told the boy to rest up and get ready for his training to tomorrow morning. Apparently, they were going to pick up where they left off and continue to work on his fine tuning his control. Which reminded the boy of a conversation that he needed to have with one of his classmates.

* * *

Rabbit: Excuse me Yanagi-san, are you busy?

Ghost: No

Ghost: Is there something that you need?

Rabbit: No.

Rabbit: But I learned something today that I think you'd be interested in.

Ghost: Is that so?

Rabbit: Yeah, I don't really have much use for it. But I think it could help you out a lot.

Ghost: I'm all ears.

* * *

After his brief chat with Yanagi, Midoriya showered and got ready for bed. While he scrolled through his news feed on his phone, an alert from the JNN popped up on the television at the front of the room. Curiosity got the better of him and he took a moment to read through the bulletin on the screen.

"_Breaking News: Wide scale villain in attack in downtown Hosu. Residents are advised to stay indoors and avoid highly populated areas if possible. Heroes and police are currently on the scene and have the situation under control. Eyewitness testimony reports that the Endeavor Hero Agency is among their ranks."_

'_Hmm, I wonder what's going on over there?' _Midoriya thought to himself before turning the television off and setting his phone down on the nearby nightstand. The boy made a mental note to remember to follow up on the situation in the morning.

* * *

**Author's Notes: ****Unohana is also going to be a recurring character in this fic (Kind of like how Rayet Yamanaka was in M-K Ultra). We've hit the limit on my OC's on the story aside from Tokage's dad so don't expect any more of them except for some one-off villains here and there. I know people get annoyed when there are too many side characters and I feel the same way. I needed someone who lives at the orphanage and he's going to have a pretty interesting role in the "Third Act". I think you guys will find his character very compelling.**


	15. Internships: Part 5

_"In latest news, the 'Hero Killer' strikes again! Last night in the midst of the attack in downtown Hosu that was believed to have been orchestrated by the League of Villains, yet another two lives were taken by the hands of the 'Hero Killer' Stain. Among the deceased were the pro hero Native, and one other individual whose identity has not yet been made public. _

_This attack is coming only a week after the pro hero Ingenium suffered serious, life threatening injuries at the hands of this masked murderer. Along with several other heroes who were also found dead at the scene. Not much is known about the man or his quirk. Or even his motivations for committing such heinous acts of violence. But residents of Hosu and the surrounding area are advised to remain vigilant. Any and all information pertaining to Stain's whereabouts should be reported to the local police as soon as possible."_ The voice of the reporter echoed throughout the lobby.

"This 'Hero Killer' seems to be quite dangerous." Katsuragi said as her and Midoriya made their way through the building.

"Yeah." The boy nodded nervously.

"From what I hear, Ingenium's hero career is over. That madman did quite a number on him. His younger brother is one of your classmates, right?"

"Yeah, I don't really know the guy. The only time I talked to him was after our match in Sport Festival."

"Well, I hope he's doing alright."

"Did you know Ingenium, Fubuki-san?" Midoriya asked.

"I ran into him a couple of years back when I was working a job near Tokyo. He was a very nice man and a top notch hero if you ask me. I'll admit that watching how Team Idaten handled their business was the inspiration for how I restructured the agency."

"Wow." Was all the boy said.

Just as they were about to head out the door, Midoriya's phone went off. The boy pulled the device out of his tracksuit pocket to see that it was group chat for his class.

* * *

_~Class 1-B Group Chat~_

Fist: Hey guys. Kan-sensei wanted me to tell you guys before the official word was put out. But the school is cutting our internships short. Today will be the last day. Your pros should be receiving a notification from the school by this afternoon.

Knife: What!

Beyblade: What!

Ball: What! Why?

Boxing Glove: Do you know why?

Cross: Might this have something to do with the attack in Hosu last night?

Skeleton: Isn't Tetsutetsu-kun over there? Dude are you alright?

Dumbbell: Yeah, I was already in bed when that all kicked off. I slept through it.

T-Rex: Yeah, that sounds about right. Good job Metalhead.

Mushroom: I'm glad that you're alright.

Lion: This is quite unfortunate.

Black: And lame.

Chameleon: Agreed

T-Rex: Monoma, is your icon really a chameleon? Talk about unimaginative.

Mushroom: It makes sense though.

Chameleon: I think it's rather appropropriate. However, let's not forget that Awase-kun's icon is a welding torch.

Welding Torch: Hey! I don't have anything to do with this shit!

Cross: Language.

Comic Book: There are way too many people in this chat.

Ghost: Agreed.

Fist: Back to the matter at hand….

Fist: Kan-sensei didn't tell me the reason. But all of us need to be home by tomorrow morning. And Monday we need to make sure that we're all in class.

Dumbbell: This blows!

T-Rex: This still sucks though. I wonder why the sudden change.

Knife: Someone probably did something stupid and all of us are about to get chewed out.

Chameleon: I bet it was one of those 1-A jerks.

Ball: Or Kamakiri finally went off the deep end and slashed someone in half.

Knife: You wanna fight me or something Tsuburaba?!

Cross: If you're going to argue, please do it in a separate chat.

T-Rex: My money's on Kamakiri!

Skeleton: Same

Black: Yeah...that sounds about right.

Ball: Dude!

Beyblade: Sorry dude. But you'd get dusted.

Beyblade: Or diced.

Ball: Really feeling the love guys….

Mushroom: This way too entertaining.

Welding Torch: This is way too much excitement this early in the morning. Do you motherfuckers even know what sleep is?

Skeleton: Says the guy who always passes out in the middle of Ectoplasm-sensei's lessons.

Welding Torch: It's not my fault that math is boring as all hell.

Apple: I agree.

Boxing Glove: Okay, I think it's about time we end this.

Lion: Yes, all of the necessary information has been relayed throughout the class. I'm sure that Kendou-san will keep us abreast of the situation if any further updates come to light.

Ball: Haha...you said "abreast".

T-Rex: Lol!

Cross: Grow up!

T-Rex: Don't be such a stick in the mud Ibara.

Comic Book: Goodbye everyone!

Knife: Deuces!

Apple: Have fun with your internships, companions!

Fist: And stay out of trouble! Let's not throw more fuel onto the fire.

Welding Torch: Man, you really are the "big sister" of the class.

Chameleon: Have a wonderful day.

Rabbit: I hope everyone has a good day.

Beyblade: Holy shit! Midoriya's alive after all. Now all we need is Kodai and Bondo and we'll have a full set. Lol.

Cross: Language.

Cross: I hope that everyone has a blessed day.

T-Rex: You guys are great.

* * *

Seeing as this was the final day of his internship, Midoriya was making it a point to absorb as much information as possible from Katsuragi. He had already learned a lot more than he expected from the heroine and he was grateful for her taking him on. But a part of him was sad that their time together was going to be cut short so soon.

"Well...this is unfortunate." The woman sighed as she stretched out on the ground in front of her student. "Cutting your internship short pretty much throws a monkey wrench into what I had planned for the week."

"Yeah, I wonder why the school decided to do it though."

"Who knows? Maybe something happened with that business in Hosu."

"I can't say for sure."

"Well in any case, we have to make the most of the remaining time that we have together. I was planning on working on your mobility and control some more. But we'll have to skip that for now."

"So what are we going to do?"

"I wanted to talk to you about your match during the Sports Festival. More specifically, that move you used on that Bakugou boy."

"Oh…" Midoriya's face shifted into an uncomfortable frown. Something like this was going to happen sooner or later. And no doubt the woman had a lot to say about it.

"To be frank, what you did could very well have ended that boy's life. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. A "force choke" as we call it is very high level move. It's takes a ridiculous amount of concentration and control to perform, let alone safely. The fact that you can do it was a pretty good indicator that you haven't even come close to reaching your full potential. To my knowledge, only myself and my sister have been able to do it."

"Seriously?" Midoriya questioned.

"Yes." The woman nodded. "When it comes to stuff like that, you're not using your quirk the same way as you would normally. Think of it in the same way as when you're trying to lift multiple objects at once. What you're essentially doing is creating a force field around a person's body and applying it to a specific area."

The boy tapped a finger to his chin as he thought about the explanation. "That makes a lot of sense."

"Everything we've done so far, including that, are pretty much the building blocks for one of my super moves, "Hellstorm". I was hoping to improve your skills a bit more before I showed you how to do it. But I don't think we'll get the chance."

"I don't think I've ever heard of it." He told her.

"Observe."

Midoriya watched as Katsuragi began floating in the air and placed herself a fair bit of distance away from him. Over the next few seconds, the woman lifted up a large sum of scrap metal in the nearby area and proceeded to use her quirk to create what he can only describe as a violent whirlwind of debris. It was certainly impressive by appearances alone. But even from where he was standing, the boy could see the woman straining a bit to keep it maintained. After about thirty seconds of this, she released her quirk and made her way back over to him.

"That was amazing!"

"Yes, it is."

"So essentially, you use the debris that you manipulated and created some type of barrier zone that allows you to move them as fast as you want. By applying the concept of the "force field" you don't have to worry about hurting your allies while keeping a villain contained."

"That's exactly correct." Katsuragi smiled. It impressed her how smart the boy was. This was his first time seeing it action and he was already able to piece together the basics of how it worked. '_I need to make sure that I do whatever I can to get this boy to join the agency once he graduates.'_

"My sister created this move a while ago. She could do it on a much larger scale than I could, but even she had trouble with this when she first thought it up."

"Wow, Tornado was really something else wasn't she?"

"There's a reason why she made it to the rank of number four hero in the country. And it certainly wasn't her charming personality."

Midoriya paused for a second as he processed that statement. Unlike most top heroes nowadays, Tornado certainly wasn't the most pleasant person in the world. Much like her sister, the woman rarely ever made any public appearances outside of her hero work and even skipped out on the national ranking ceremony a few times. In fact, the only interview of hers that he can remember was the one where she called Endeavor a: "Muscle bound flame-brain who's too much of bitch even go outside when it rained."

"Excuse me Fubuki-san, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"Go ahead."

"What was Tornado like?"

A brief beat of silence passed as the woman gazed up into the sky. In her mind, memories of her older sister flashed before eyes. Most of them were pleasant, while some...were not.

"If I were to be completely honest...she was brash, moody, hotheaded and impatient. She was disrespectful toward most people, especially to those she deemed incompetent. Growing up, she made it a point to never associate herself with people she thought were lazy or couldn't cut." The woman started while a not so pleasant memory crept into her mind.

* * *

"_Dammit!" A young Fubuki slammed her fist into the dirt after her failure to land even a single blow on the short, green haired woman floating in the air in front of her._

"_Come on Fubuki, I'm hardly even trying. We've been going at this for two hours and you still haven't managed to touch me!"_

"_I'm trying, okay! You're just too strong!"_

"_Those sound like the words of a quitter. How do you expect to get into U.A. if you can't even deal with something like this? We have the same quirk, so this should be something you can handle."_

"_Well I'm sorry we can't all be freaks of nature you are! You're a pro and I'm still in middle school for fucks sake!"_

_Tatsumaki's face shifted into an expression of absolute annoyance. "Y'know...if you were anyone else, I would've buried you under all this junk for speaking to me like that."_

"_I…I-I'm sorry." The young girl quickly apologized._

"_Maybe if you spent more time training instead of goofing off with those stupid friends of yours you wouldn't be having such a hard time."_

"_At least I have friends." The girl mumbled under her breath._

"_What was that?!"_

"_N-nothing!"_

"_I thought so." Tatsumaki folded her arms in satisfaction. "Mom and dad let you move in with me so that I can supervise your training. And I plan to make sure that you take full advantage of it. So get the fuck up and come at me again! And this time, I don't want to see you riding around on one of those car doors. The only way to improve your flying is by doing it. Stop trying to weasel your way out of putting in the work!"_

"_Okay." She told her while standing on two shaky legs before launching herself into the air._

* * *

"But above all else she loved being a hero and thought it was her duty to protect people. In her opinion, those with power should do whatever they can to keep others safe. She may not have been the most charismatic person in the world. But there was no denying that she could get the job done." The woman smiled.

"She sounds like a really interesting person."

"Just be glad you don't have to deal with having her as a mentor instead of me. I can't even tell you how many all-nighters she put me through when I was your age. She may have been stronger, but I'd like to think that I'm a far superior teacher." The woman laughed.

"Well I think that you've done a wonderful job so far, Fubuki-san. It's only been three days and you've already taught me so much. I'm honestly sad that we have to cut the internships short. I feel like I'm finally getting a handle on using my quirk in all types of ways." Midoriya said with an honest smile.

"And you still have a lot of room to grow. I was being serious the other day when I said that you could be on onee-chan's level one day. And you'll probably have a way better public image once you go pro. Assuming you don't let the fame go to your head."

"I wouldn't dream of it. I'm not in this for the popularity or anything like that. I just want to do what's right and save lives. I kinda want to be like you when I go pro."

"Just remember that I got first dibs on you after you graduate."

After a few quick laughs, the green haired duo wasted no time getting into their training for the morning. The first order of business was moving large objects while mid-flight. Midoriya was feeling pretty motivated before, but now he had even more reason to give it his all. He still had a long way to go before he could be the kind of hero he wanted to. But at least he finally had someone who he could look up to again.

* * *

Once their morning training session was over, the two telekinetics were waiting to be picked up. Unlike the previous two days, Katsuragi wanted to conserve their energy for their last patrol together.

The two didn't have to wait long before Ozehana pulled up to the junkyard in black sedan. This was his first time seeing the black haired woman outside of her hero uniform and Midoriya was now feeling pretty self conscious about his lack of muscle definition compared to the '_flame control'_ user.

"You guys look like you're having fun!" The woman smiled while she gave the two greenettes a wave.

"Thank you for doing this Ozehana-chan. I appreciate it." Katsuragi said.

"Don't worry about it boss, I was heading over to the agency anyway."

"Oh yeah…" Midoriya spoke up. "Fubuki-san did say that you were new to the agency, right?"

"Sure am! I transferred over a few months ago. And it's way better than the last place I worked at."

"Where was that? If you don't mind me asking."

"I was at the Endeavor Agency before coming here."

"Really?!" The boy's eyes blew open after hearing that. Even he knew how hard it was for a hero to get a job there. From what he's heard, the number two hero was extremely picky about who he allowed to work under him. Heroes from around the country would practically line up around the corner whenever a new spot opened up. This was his first time ever hearing about someone _leaving_ such a well respected agency. "Why'd you come over here then?"

"Mainly because it's close to where I grew up." Ozehana responded. "But it's also because I prefer doing rescue work. I became a hero to save lives, not focus all my time on fighting villains and being Endeavor's personal clean up crew. Plus I get the chance to work with the local fire departments. And...working under him is _not_ all that it's cracked up to be."

"Wow."

"Ozehana-chan is definitely someone you shouldn't take lightly. She might be the only person I've heard of that the number two hero recruited right out of high school."

"He only wanted me because I'm the only person that can snuff out his flames anytime I feel like it. Being there was cool and all, but he's terrible to work with."

"I can believe it." The boy said as his mind flashed back to his runin with the flame hero during the Sports Festival. If that quick interaction was any kind of indication, then actually working for the man must've been a nightmare. "So what made you want to go into rescue work?"

"I always wanted to be a hero like most people. But I was saved from a burning building by a firefighter when I was a kid. My quirk hadn't even come in yet and I was about to die before she got me to safety. Ever since then, that's what I decided that I wanted to do. And having a hero license meant that I could use my quirk to save more lives than being a regular firefighter." The black haired woman smiled.

"I can understand that."

With that, the group of three quickly hopped into the car to head back to the agency. Unfortunately for them, they ended up hitting a traffic jam along the way. And Katsuragi had no trouble making it known just how much she hated traffic jams.

* * *

It was easy to forget that there was no job too small when it came to being a hero. When you're used to seeing wide scale and overly dramatic fights on television all the time, you almost always miss the little things that heroes did to help out the common people. This was the lesson that Tokage learned as she carefully guided a young brunette boy out of a tall tree after he got stuck on one it's branches.

"There you go little guy." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user smiled as she patted the youngling on the head and ruffled his hair.

"Thank you." The boy smiled back despite being embarrassed about this entire situation.

"Now remember." Edgeshot interjected. "I know climbing trees in fun and all. But in the future, try to make sure that you have a way down before doing something so dangerous."

"I will Mr. Edgeshot, sir!"

"Now run along and join the rest of you friends."

"Okay. Have a good day, heroes!" The boy bowed to them before running in the direction of a group of kids who were patiently waiting by a nearby bench.

"Good job, Lizardy." Blizzard told the girl with an approving grin.

"Thanks."

The group of heroes and interns were making their way through a semi-crowded area when they spotted the boy across the street. Midoriya had offered to handle the situation, but Tokage insisted on being the one to take care of it. So he let her have this small victory.

Seeing as this was their last time patrolling together as a group, Blizzard and Edgeshot chose a more relaxed route compared to their previous two outings. However, it just so happened that this particular one led them right into the middle of a street performance of a local pop group. There was a pretty sizable crowd from what they could tell. Meaning that they must've had a lot of fans. Overall it seemed like a rather peaceful day. That was until a loud scream from the other side of the crowd caught everyone's attention.

"Holy shit! He's got a bomb!" A male voice shriek in absolute terror.

The four of them turned their heads to see a wave of people suddenly running away from a plain looking man with black hair in a white trench coat standing next to the stage.

"You people will finally know the pain I've felt for all these years! Take it in folks, this is what true power is!" The man shouted in manic glee as he tore off his coat to reveal a vest that was absolutely littered with what looked like packs of dynamite attached to it.

'_Is that…'_

Time seemed to stand still as the man lifted up his right hand into the air and showed what could only be the detonator for the device attached to his body. Just when the man was about to press the button, his body suddenly froze and he was unable to move.

"Everybody get the hell out of here!" Blizzard shouted at the top of her lungs as she held the man in place. She didn't dare take his eyes off of him otherwise she'd risk breaking her focus. And that was the last thing she was going to do in a situation like this.

"Blizzar-"

"That means you too. Get as far away from here as you can!" Edgeshot cut Midoriya off as he glared at the two students. Part of the boy wanted to protest, but the more rational side of his mind didn't even hesitate to turn around and grab Tokage before flying away. Once two of them and the rest of the crowd were at a reasonable enough distant, the students kept their eyes locked onto the confrontation.

"Let go of me you quirky bastard!" The man shouted towards Blizzard.

'_What did he just call her?'_ Midoriya and Tokage wondered simultaneously.

"Not on your life you maniac!"

"People like you are always getting in my way! You damn heroes and your flashy quirks think you're so damn noble don't you? Release me you bitch!"

'_This guy's out of his mind.'_ Blizzard thought before turning her attention over to the masked hero on her left. "Edgeshot!"

"Hold him still. I don't want to risk setting that thing off." Was all the hero said while activating his quirk and launching himself towards the man. In the blink of an eye, red wire danced through the air before piercing the criminal's mouth and knocking him out cold. Once that was done, Blizzard decided not to take any chances and levitated him further into the air away from the crowd.

"Skywalker, Lizardly! Hurry up and call the police. Tell them to get a bomb squad over here. I'm going to keep this guy in the air until they show up!" She ordered the two students.

"On it!" The green haired boy answered back as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

While Midoriya was making the call, Tokage was steadily trying to get her heart rate back under control. The girl all but froze the second she realized what was about to happen. Sure, they were pretty far away from where the guy was standing. But if Blizzard hadn't reacted as fast as she did. She didn't even want to think about what might've happened. The girl may have a regeneration ability, but she was not looking to test the limits of that anytime soon.

* * *

In less than ten minutes, police, first responders and a few local heroes were on the scene and made quick work of disarming the man before securing him the back of on armored vehicle and transporting him to the nearest precinct. Fortunately, no one was injured in all the confusion and they were able to safely dispose of the vest without it going off. While Blizzard was busy speaking to the police lieutenant, Edgeshot took the time to check on the two students.

"Are you guys alright?" He asked in a concerned tone.

"We're fine." Tokage answered him.

"I'm starting to think that cutting your internships short is a good idea. You kids really shouldn't be exposed to this kind of thing. Luckily Blizzard was here or else that would've gotten ugly."

"No kidding." Midoriya let out a shaky breath. The adrenaline in his body was finally wearing off and he was trying really hard to not think about how close everyone came to getting blown to bits. He may have had to deal with Bakugou growing up, but that was way too stressful even for him.

"Do you think that guy has something to do with all of the bombings that have been going on across the country over the last few days? One of our classmates said that something similar happened close to where he was interning at." The girl asked.

"I can't say for sure, but it certainly looks that way." The number five hero folded his arms. "This is the second one in the prefecture. I read that there was another one this morning in Shimane."

"That's nuts."

"I'm also concerned about what that guy said before I knocked him out." The hero continued.

That was another thing that stuck out to the two students. The man called Blizzard a "quirky bastard" before being put down. Neither of them had ever something like that before. And all they could do was assume that it was related to the reason why he decided to strap a bomb to his chest.

A few minutes passed before Blizzard rejoined the group as the police took over the scene. News crews were starting to file in and the woman wasn't really in the mood to deal with that right now.

"I think we should head back to our agencies and let these two get ready to go." She stated.

"I agree." Edgeshot nodded.

"Did you learn anything?" Midoriya asked the woman.

"Nothing significant for right now. The lieutenant said that he's going to be handling the case and asked me if I could provide some help. Seeing as this might be connected to all of the attacks that have been going on, he wants to be as thorough as possible."

"I'll be joining you. Something like this is too big of an issue not to get involved and I want to provide my services where I can." The masked man added on.

"I'll send you his contact information later. For now we should go."

That was the last thing said before the group split up and made the journey back to their respective agencies. Before they left, Tokage let the Midoriya know that she would text him as soon as she was released. All the boy did was nod at this as he and Blizzard took off into the sky.

For some reason, Midoriya had a strange feeling in his gut about this entire situation.

* * *

"Well Midoriya-kun, I'm sad that you couldn't get the full experience of what being a hero is like. But I hope that you take what you've learned here these past few days and use that information well." Katsuragi looked to her student from across her desk. This would be their last conversation together before Midoriya made his way back home.

"I will. Thank you for everything, Fubuki-san." The boy bowed to the woman.

"Don't thank me, just make sure that you do well in class. I hope that you'll consider coming here again when you finally get the chance to do your work studies. But you shouldn't really have to worry about that until next year."

"So boss, are you ever going to give him his presents?" Ozehana asked in an impatient tone.

"Huh?" The boy looked up in confusion.

Without saying a word, Katsuragi activated her quirk and levitated two medium sized white boxes over from the nearby table. Receiving any type of gift was the last thing Midoriya was expecting from his mentor. And judging by how nice those boxes looked, whatever was inside certainly wasn't cheap.

"I was going to give these to you on your last day, but now we won't get that chance. Don't take this the wrong way Midoriya-kun, but your hero costume is pretty dull. I thought it would be a good idea to add some flair to your look."

"That _and_ this gave her an excuse to go on a late night shopping spree with Lily-chan to buy some new shoes." Said Ozehana with a smirk on her face.

"Anyway…" Katsuragi coughed into her hand before opening both of the boxes. The woman proceeded to pull out two brand new jackets that looked way less opulent than the boy expected. They were rather simple in their design, both of them having large hoods and being long enough to stop at the midpoint of his thighs. One was black with green accents along the sleeves while the other had an inverted color pallet.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Ozehana smiled at him.

"Y-yeah." He nodded.

"We couldn't decide on which one to pick to we just ended up getting both. Both of these can be worn during warm or cold weather. They're very breathable and shouldn't limit your mobility. But don't think these are just a fashion statement. Both jackets are made of a material that's fireproof, water repellant and cut resistant. It's actually the same stuff I use in my hero costume."

"I don't know what to say." Midoriya blushed while looking over the jackets.

"Well you can try one on for starters." The woman shot back.

Midoriya took her up on the offer and quickly grabbed the green colored jacket before throwing it over his shoulders. Almost immediately he loved the way that it felt over his body and was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to move in. He could definitely see himself adding on of these to his hero costume.

"Man, now that you have that thing on you two really do look like brother and sister." Ozehana laughed. Earning an amused smile from her boss.

"Thank you very much for this, Fubuki-san!" The boy bowed once again.

"It was my pleasure Midoriya-kun."

"Well, I better be on my way now. Again, thank you for everything."

"Are you sure you don't want us to give you a ride? It's really not a big deal."

"No it's fine. You guys are busy and I don't want to be a burden."

"Well enjoy your journey back home and I look forward to seeing you again in the future. If you ever have any questions feel free to contact me."

"Yes ma'am." Was the last thing he said before making his way out of the building.

* * *

T-Rex: Hey what time is Blizzard letting you go?

Rabbit: She already did.

T-Rex: Awesome! Edgeshot cut me loose a few minutes ago.

Rabbit: That's cool.

T-Rex: So what do you have planned for the rest of the day?

Rabbit: Nothing really. I was just going to head back home and study.

T-Rex: Dude…seriously?

Rabbit: Yeah.

T-Rex: We should totally hang out!

T-Rex: We can chill over at my place.

The thought of going over to a classmate's house on a Friday night certainly wasn't the worst idea in the world. But when you take into account that said classmate was a girl. And one who made it her personal mission to tease him whenever possible. Midoriya couldn't quite bring himself to take the green haired girl up on her offer.

Rabbit: I'm not really comfortable with that.

T-Rex: Oh, alright then. Maybe some other time.

Rabbit: Didn't you say that you usually have your family dinners on Fridays?

T-Rex: Yeah, but my dad is working late tonight and Aunt Nemuri has something to do at the school. So it'll just be me.

Rabbit: Oh…

Rabbit: Well I don't have to be back home for a while. Maybe we can do something else?

T-Rex: Wow Moptop, are you really asking me out on a date? How bold of you.

T-Rex: ;-)

Rabbit: Nodsouhdfhfa

Rabbit: No that's not what I meant at all!

T-Rex: Whatever you say.

T-Rex: We can meet up at the train station and figure out what we want to do from there. Is that okay with you?

Rabbit: Sure.

T-Rex: Alright, then I hope you're ready for our second "not-date".

* * *

After meeting up at the train station and making their way over to the shopping center next to her house, Tokage and Midoriya decided to spend their brief outing at a ramen shop. Unlike their previous few times hanging out, the green haired teen was marginally more talkative this time around. Of course, Tokage was still the one leading the conversation. But she much preferred this to the usual one word answers and short replies.

"It still sucks that we had to cut the internships short." Tokage complained after taking a slurp of her noodles.

"Yeah." The boy nodded in agreeance. "Did you ask Midnight-sensei why the sudden change?"

"I did, but she was tight lipped about the whole thing. All she told me was that all of the hero course first years are going to be having some type of assembly when we get back to school on Monday."

"I hope nothing serious happened." Midoriya said with a worried tone.

"Aww, you look so adorable when you make that face. Have you ever considered working a part time job as a teddy bear?" The girl teased while pinching his cheek.

"T-Tokage-san!" Midoriya squeaked out. The boy's eyes quickly glanced over to he one of the workers behind the counter who was smiling at them and giving him a thumbs up.

"Sorry, you're just too cute."

"S-s-so do you act like this a-all this time?"

"No, but your reactions are just too fun not to mess with you!" She smirked.

Hoping to gain some type of control on this situation, the boy quickly decided to change subjects. "So…what kind of training did you do with Edgeshot? I never really got the chance to ask."

"Most of it was stealth training and helping me come up with a few new moves. He's a pretty awesome teacher. He even gave me a couple of books on reconnaissance and sneaking techniques as a goodbye present. What about you?"

"Fubuki-san actually showed me a lot of ways on how I can maximize my quirk. I'm actually looking forward to testing them out during class."

"You're lucky that you got to intern with someone who has the same quirk as you. I don't think that I'll ever get a chance like that since mine is so unique. The only people I have are my dad and my sister."

Curiosity got the better of Midoriya in that moment and he couldn't help himself from inquiring about what sort of quirks the girl's family possess. Tokage's ability was so unique that he had a hard time coming up with a combination that could produce such a versatile power.

"Do you mind if I ask what kind of quirks they have? I'm assuming that they're very similar to yours."

"It's no problem at all." She smiled before slurping up some more noodles. "My dad and my sister both have the same quirk, they call it '_dismemberment'_. The both of them can detach their limbs and control them remotely like I can. My mom had a regeneration ability but it wasn't very powerful. It's where I get the other part of my quirk from."

"Had?" Midoriya asked in a curious tone.

"She died on the job when I was little." The girl answered with a straight face and neutral tone.

"I'm sorry to hear that…" Midoriya replied in a soft, almost apologetic voice.

"It is what it is." Tokage shrugged nonchalantly.

"How did- I'm s-sorry, I probably shouldn't ask you something like that."

"It's cool." She waved off. "She was a firefighter. From what my dad told me, she died saving someone on the job. Apparently she got injured during the rescue and her quirk couldn't repair the damage."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"What kind of work does your dad do? You said he works a lot so it must be pretty important."

"He's an engineer at a hero support company. He's actually the one that makes all of Aunt Nemuri's hero suits, it's how the two of them met."

"All of them…?" Midoriya's mind flashed back to now infamous video of his teacher's hero debut and her…less than appropriate outfit. That one event was what caused the change in how much skin a hero could expose in their costume. Even nowadays, heroes needed to have written justification on any extreme elements to their attire.

"Yes, even her first one." Tokage giggled. "It's kind of funny, that whole thing made my dad kind of famous in the support industry. And Aunt Nemuri is still pretty pissed about it. But if you think that was bad, you should see what her costume was when she was still at U.A.. Now _that_ one was doosey."

"I'll take just take your word for it."

"What about you? I've never heard you talk about your parents before. What do they do?"

"Oh…my mom's a legal assistant and my dad works as a welder in the U.S.." He told her.

"That's pretty cool. What kind of quirks do they have? They gotta be pretty good to make one as powerful as yours."

Midoriya let out a quick chuckle to hide the slight bit of pain he felt in his heart after hearing that. "Nothing special really. My dad can breathe fire and my mom has a telekinetic quirk kind of like I do. Except she can only pull small objects towards her."

"Weird, with that combination you think you'd get some type of fire manipulation quirk or something like that Ember lady who works for Blizzard has."

"Yeah...that would make a lot of sense." He awkwardly agreed.

Eventually, the two teenagers finished up with their meal and began making their way back over to the train station. Tokage insisted on walking her classmate all the way there, despite it being a bit out of her way. Midoriya didn't really have the heart to tell her no, so he just let her do as she pleased.

"Thanks for hanging out with me, Moptop. I really appreciate it." She smiled at him with her hands at her back as the two walked side-by-side.

"It was no problem at all, Tokage-san."

Once the two were right in front of the terminal, Tokage suddenly planted herself right in front of Midoriya. The boy's face instantly heated up at her close proximity and the girl seemed determined not to break eye contact with him.

"I'm going to hug now." She told him with a toothy grin.

"W-w-what?!" He blurted out faster than his brain could stop him.

"I'm going to hug you. I was going to do it regardless, but I thought I should at least give you a little warning."

"W-why?"

"Because I want to."

"That's not-"

Midoriya was cut off when the girl plunged herself into his chest and wrapped her arms around his body. Naturally, he had no clue what to do in the situation. Over the next few seconds the boy stood as still as a statue, while his entire head turned an even more furious shade of red. With each passing moment his brain turned to mush and his heart was ready to leap out of his chest. Was this something that friends usually do when saying goodbye to each other? He had no clue. He knew that girls were typically more expressive and "affectionate" with their friends than guys. Maybe that was just a normal thing for her.

"Psst, Moptop. You're supposed to hug me back." Tokage whispered with a playful grin. She was obviously enjoying this for multiple different reasons.

"O-oh...o-o-okay." He nodded as he robotically wrapped his arms around her. Another few seconds of this and he was worried that he would spontaneously burst into flames.

Eventually the green haired girl broke the friendly embrace and ruffled his hair with her hand. "We'll have to work on that." She laughed before turning on her heels and making the journey back home. "See you on Monday Moptop! Try not to dream about me too much!"

"Bye…" He whispered as he watched the girl disappear down the road.

Once he got himself in order, Midoriya quickly boarded his train back home and plopped onto the open seat next to the door. The hug from earlier was still fresh in his mind as he was absolutely certain that his face was going to remain flushed for the rest of the night.

As he looked back down at his metal briefcase containing his hero costume, the boy suddenly remembered that he had at least thing that he needed to handle over the weekend. Midoriya ran a hand through his wild green mane and started scrolling through his phone while looking up barber shops in the area.

'_I wonder what kind of style I should get.'_ He thought to himself before leaning back in his seat and letting out a heavy sigh.


	16. Overcast

"_I'll admit that even I have a difficult time controlling this one. But it should serve you quite well."_

"_What is-"_

"_Don't worry my boy, you will feel no pain. Go on and achieve your dream. And you'd do well to know that if you ever chose to return to me, I am here...for you."_

"Ah!" Midoriya shouted, launching himself up from his bed. The boy's eyes darted around the room, looking to see where he was. His breath was unsteady and his mouth was dry. It only took a few seconds for him to notice to excessive amount of sweat covering his entire body.

"What the hell was that?" He wondered out loud as he ran a hand through his hair.

Midoriya didn't dream that often. Actually, the boy would say it was a rare occurrence altogether. But something about the hazy image in his head was odd. It felt...real. If he didn't know any better, he would say it felt more like a distant memory rather than some random fabrication that his mind had concocted.

Deciding not to dwell on it, the green haired teen quickly got himself out of bed and made his way towards the bathroom to get ready for school.

* * *

The early morning commute to U.A. was just as chaotic as it usually was. Midoriya was sitting in a train car that looked to be just about filled minus the seat next to him and a few others scattered throughout the area.

Ever since making it into the most famous hero school in the country, and his "success" in the Sports Festival, the boy had grown accustomed to random passersby recognizing either himself or the uniform he wore. Pretty much all of the comments that people gave him were positive, which he was thankful for. But a few people here and there couldn't help but mention how "wild" or "awesome" he looked choking out his classmate on national television.

Luckily for him, everyone seemed to be too busy to say something to him on this particular morning. Which he silently hoped would become a more frequent occurrence.

"Excuse me, may I sit here?" A deep voice said to him once the automatic doors closed after picking up another set of passengers.

Midoriya looked up only to be met with the sight of another student wearing the same uniform as he was. The person in question had a head similar to that of a crow and the boy immediately recognized him as one of the other hero course students from the Sports Festival. If his memory was correct, the guy had some sort of shadow spirit quirk.

"Uh sure." Midoriya simply nodded.

"Thank you, Midoriya." The boy gave a polite bow before taking the open seat next to him.

"It's no problem…."

"Tokoyami." He answered his silent question.

"Right, it's no problem Tokoyami-san."

"So I am to assume that your class had their internships brought to a halt as well?" The bird headed teen inquired in rather peculiar manner of speech.

"Y-yeah."

"I see." Tokoyami replied. "You wouldn't happen to know the reason why this is do you? None of my other classmates seem to know and I am rather curious."

"No clue. Everyone in 1-B is pretty much in the dark."

"I see."

The two sat in rather peaceful silence over the next couple of minutes. It was weird how this was his first real interaction with someone from the other class. Aside from his short talk with Iida after their match and that time after class with that Uraraka girl. You would think that by this point in the school year they would've had more time to get to know each other. But considering the mess their class went through, it was understandable.

"So...what's it like in 1-A? If you don't mind me asking?" Midoriya said in a rather nervous tone. His curiosity getting the better of him.

"As normal as one would expect, I suppose. It's not much different than what I've seen in previous institutions. Though our homeroom teacher is quite eccentric. I am curious about your class as well?"

"Pretty much the same really."

"You seem to have a lot of capable students in your class. I was able to rewatch some of the footage from the Sports Festival and you all performed admirably well. I admire how you worked together to overcome the obstacle course. It was a sound strategy."

"Yeah, we kind of just freestyled everything to be honest. But your class were the ones who everyone was paying attention to."

"You have a point."

"You also have a lot of really strong guys." Midoriya continued. Not only did they have Bakugou in 1-A. But they had the son of the number two hero, the brother of another popular hero. And if his assumptions were correct, the daughter of one of the biggest business conglomerates in the entire country. On paper, it seemed like 1-A was where all the top candidates were placed in.

"The same could be said for your class, or you in particular."

"Huh?"

"You left quite an impression on my classmates, myself included. You bested Todoroki and Iida in the competition. And you came close to defeating Bakugou as well. Objectively speaking, those are our three strongest members."

Midoriya blushed a little and began scratching his cheek. "It r-really wasn't all that impressive. I pretty much got l-lucky in my match against Todoroki-san and I had just had the advantage over Iida-san when it came to quirks."

"Do you mind if ask you a question?"

"Go ahead."

"Bakugou seems to harbor a bit of a grudge against you. Ever since your match he's been marginally more irritable as of late. He's mentioned you quite a few times and doesn't exactly hold you in high regard. Might there be a history between you two?"

'_I can't exactly say that I wasn't expecting that.'_ Midoriya sighed internally. Of course Bakugou was still pissed at him. What else was new? He made it a point to avoid the '_explosion'_ quirk user whenever possible. But now it seems like he'll have to be extra careful in the future.

"Something like that." Was all Midoriya felt like replying with.

"I see, forgive for prying into your business in such a way." The raven headed teen apologized.

"It's no problem."

That was the last thing said before the two teen ended their conversation. Midoriya and Tokoyami sat in peaceful silence for the rest of the train ride. Admittedly, the boy found it someone refreshing that not everyone in 1-A was like his former friend.

* * *

There was no shortage of chatter and excitement in the classroom as the students of 1-B patiently waited for the bell to ring. Naturally, the only thing everyone could talk about were their internships and how they went. For the most, everyone seemed to have a fun time with their pros and a few people were even talking about all the stuff they learned.

"That's still pretty crazy though. I don't know what I would've done if I was there." Kendou said after Tokage finished telling their group about their last day with Katsuragi and Kamihara. At the moment, the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user's desk was surrounded by Kendou, Tetsutetsu, Shiozaki, Kaibara, Honenuki and Tsunotori.

"Seriously, I'm thankful that you came out of that unharmed." The vine haired girl added.

"Yeah...if Blizzard wasn't there, it would've been bad."

Kaibara was the next to speak. "Still, a ton of crazy stuff happened last week. Shoda said that one of those attacks happened close to where he was interning. It's no wonder why the school pulled us out early."

"I wonder what the assembly is going to be about this morning. It's just all of the hero course first years, right?" Honenuki asked.

"No clue, Aunt Nemuri wouldn't spill." Tokage shrugged. The R-Rated heroine was acting rather odd this morning. Normally her and Tetsutetsu would take the train over to school, but she insisted on driving the two of them there herself just to make sure that they made it on time.

The conversation went on pretty normally for the next few minutes. That was until Awase suddenly shouted loud enough to catch everyone's attention. "Oh shit! Midoriya, is that you?!"

Every set of eyes currently in the classroom turned towards the door and a collective gasp escaped their mouths once they got a look at their classmate. It was Midoriya. Standing there with a not-so-subtle amount of redness on his cheeks. Looking very different from the last time they saw him. From the neck down, everything was the same. Right down to his signature red boots. But that's not what everyone was focused on.

The real story of the morning was his hair. The fluffy mop of green locks that they were all so used to seeing was gone. The sides and back of his head were shaved close to the scalp. And on the top, his hair was still thick and curly but cropped to about half of its original length.

'_What...the...fuck….'_ A slightly bewildered Tokage thought as she visually inspected his person.

At the front of the room, Midoriya was quickly regressing into a blushing mess at all of this unwanted attention. Literally every single one of his classmates was staring at him as they tried to process what they were seeing. And the boy was now regretting not wearing some type of hat over his head. "H-hey guys." He greeted them with a shaky wave.

All of a sudden, the floodgates seemed to open and almost half of the students shot out of their seats and ran up to him.

"Dude, what the hell is this? Why'd you cut your hair?!" Tetsutetsu was the first to speak.

"Oh man, what the hell happened to you?" Tsuburaba was the next to comment.

"You look so different!" Komori smiled at him.

"I like it." Kendou gave an approving nod.

Over the next few seconds, all Midoriya could do was give everyone an awkward laugh as he tried his best not to faint from being the center of attention. Right as the boy was about to speak, a set of hands placed themselves on either side of his face and his head was turned to the left. Two sets of green eyes locked onto each other and they boy's face reddened even further.

Tokage was definitely having a hard time trying to contain herself as she inspected the boy's features from top to bottom. She wasn't prepared for this at all. Not in the slightest. Why didn't he say anything about getting his haircut? This was way to monumental to just spring on her out of the blue like this. The girl subconsciously began running her fingers through what was left of his mane and she suddenly felt a bit of heat welling up in her face.

'_Oh shit...he's kinda hot.'_ The girl thought.

'_Is she actually blushing?'_ Tetsutetsu looked at his longtime friend in disbelief. This may have actually been the first time in his life that he'd seen the girl flustered in any type of way.

The sound of Shiozaki coughing into her hand snapped the green haired duo out of their awkwardly intimate moment and brought them back to reality. There were a few jokes and snide remarks at the girl's bravery to grope one of her classmates right before their very eyes. But it was nothing inappropriate.

"You're an asshole." The girl fake pouted as she folded her arms across her chest.

"Huh?" Midoriya blinked.

"Now I have to come up with a new nickname for you. I can't call you Moptop anymore." She explained.

"Oh…" He gave her a nervous grin.

"Still man, you look pretty stylish." Honenuki joked while patting him on the back.

"Yeah Midoriya, you look like a total fuckboy!" Tsunotori smiled at him.

…

…

…

"Pony!"

"Pffft!" Tokage couldn't stop herself from laughing after hearing that.

"Oh damn." Awase nearly double over as he failed to contain his own laughter.

"What?" The horned teen looked around in confusion.

A few steps behind her, Monoma was cackling like a madman while supporting himself on Tsuburaba's shoulder. The blonde teen was doing his best to remain calm but he just couldn't do it after witnessing something so hilarious. Luckily Kendou was quick to scold him by chopping him in the back of the neck. "That's not funny, Monoma-kun!"

"What's wrong?" The American girl inquired again.

"_Dude, do you know what you just said?"_ Tokage asked in English.

"_I told him that he looks really cool."_

"_That's definitely not it."_

"_Well what did I say?"_

"_You called him a "fuckboy"!"_ The girl announced while grabbing her sides and leaning over the nearby desk.

Immediately, Tsunotori's face reddened and she began bowing to Midoriya in an attempt to apologize. "_I'm so sorry Midoriya, I didn't know! I thought I was giving you a compliment. Monoma tricked me. I didn't mean it. Please forgive me!"_ She frantically said with a slight tear in her eye.

"_It's okay, Tsunotori-san."_ Midoriya waved off in a slightly dejected tone.

"What's going on?" A stoic voice suddenly spoke up. Everyone's attention now turned to the perpetually emotionless face of Yanagi who just walked into the classroom. A pale blue eye lingered on Midoriya's form for a few seconds before the girl made the journey over to her seat. "Nice haircut, Midoriya-kun."

"T-thank you, Yanagi-san." He replied. "Oh yeah, were you able to do that thing I showed you?"

"Sort of, I was going to ask you a few more questions later when you get the chance. I'm having some trouble with it."

"Oh~." Tokage interjected in a teasing tone. "What's going on here? You showed Ghosty a new "trick" huh?"

The implication of what she was saying was not lost on either of the two telekinesis users at all. Midoriya was about to fumble his way through an explanation. But luckily for him, Yanagi was faster in her response. "Midoriya-kun showed me a new way to apply my quirk. I think it will be a very useful skill to use."

"Man...I can't crack you at all, can I?"

"Unlikely."

Things settled down after the bell finally rang and Kan walked into the room. Their homeroom teacher looked like he had seen better days and some would say that his shoulders look particularly heavy this morning. "Alright students! I know you all want to discuss your time interning with your pros, but we're going to hold off on that. We need to hurry up and get over to the auditorium. I'm telling you now, if anyone says something that makes me angry...detention will be the least of your worries."

A few students gulped at this. Kan never made any type of threat, this might have actually been their first time hearing one coming from the man's mouth. Whatever was about to happen, it certainly wasn't good.

* * *

In no time, all of the first year students of the hero course were gathered together in the school auditorium. There was a weird tension in the air as everyone eyed each other across the seats. This was the first official introduction the students were given to their sister classes since starting at U.A. and no one had any clue what the reason was for bringing them together.

In his seat between Tokage and Yanagi, Midoriya could feel a set of eyes boring a hole into the back of his head. If he were to turn around to get a look at what was causing this slight disturbance, he would've seen Bakugou grimacing at him a couple of rows away. Luckily, the boy chose not to do that.

On the stage at the front of the auditorium sat almost all of their teachers including Snipe, Thirteen and Hound Dog. All of them looked rather unsettled and it was pretty obvious that something major was going on.

"So what do you think they want to talk about?" Tsuburaba whispered to the group while leaning forward in his seat.

"No clue." Kendou shrugged.

"I bet you five hundred yen that all of us are in trouble." Kamakiri commented.

"It seems that way." Tokage stated.

Before the whispers and assumptions could get out of hand, Principal Nezu and All Might entered the room. The hulking hero walked with his usual strut, but Midoriya noticed that "Symbol of Peace" wasn't sporting his usual trademark smile. Whatever was going on, it had to be serious for him of all people to be wearing a frown on his face.

Once they were on the stage, Nezu wasted no time walking up to the podium and addressing his students. "Greeting everyone. It warms my heart to see that you all safely returned from your internships and are able to join us today. As much I would love to pretend that this assembly I've gathered you all for was a positive one, I can't quite bring myself to do that." The white furred mammal said in a somber tone.

"I'd prefer not to mince words when speaking about this subject, so I'll just get right into it if you don't mind. A couple of you are already of this and we've managed to keep it a secret up until now. But it brings me great sorrow to announce to you that your classmate, Tenya Iida, died last Thursday."

Silence fell over the room as the hero course hopefuls processed the man's announcement. Everyone began looking around at one another with a myriad of different expressions but no one dared to say a single word. Some were confused, others were just plain shocked. And Shiozaki immediately let out a silent prayer as she clasped her hands together.

"The Iida family has chosen not to disclose this information to the general public for the time being, but have given us permission to tell you all. They're family is going through quite the troubling time as of right now, so this was no doubt hard for them to do. They ask that you keep this information to yourselves until the official announcement has been made."

"_What the hell…"_ Tokage said under her breath while sinking into her seat.

Beside her, Midoriya was still in shock. Sure, he only ever met the guy one time and didn't know him at all. But this was still alarm news.

It was already bad enough that 1-A had to go through that whole business at the USJ, but this was just too much. If he didn't know any better, he'd say that their class was cursed. The boy turned around to where Class 1-A was sitting and they all look absolutely gobsmacked. Apparently, none of them knew about this either.

"Principal Nezu, sir. What happened?" Monoma raised his hand as he was the first person to work up the nerve to speak out loud.

A heavy sigh escaped the principal's mouth before looking towards the blonde haired student. "Young Iida's life was brought to an end by the hands of the 'Hero Killer' Stain. He and another individual were found dead at the scene after the attack on Hosu was brought to an end."

Midoriya's mind began connecting dots that he wasn't sure even existed. Stain was responsible for this? The unknown villain had already brutally maimed Ingenium not even two weeks ago. And now he was responsible for killing his younger brother? From everything he had seen on the news about the man, there wasn't any real method are common denominator to whom he crossed paths with other than the fact that they were heroes. But now he was going over students? A part of Midoriya had to wonder if the guy had some sort of grudge against the Iida family.

"Oh my god." Kendou drug her hand across her face.

The sound of sniffling and coughing echoed from the back row of the group and Midoriya once again turned his gaze to see what was going on. In his line of sight he could see the brunette girl, Uraraka, looking as if she was on the verge of a break down. Tears were running down her face and he couldn't help but feel awful for her. At the very least, the dark haired girl with the scar on her face who went by Tsu was consoling her.

"I understand that this is very alarming news for all of you." Nezu stated once again. "I also want you all to know that our faculty is here for you if you need it. Inui-kun will be providing counseling sessions to anyone that wants to speak with him after we conclude this assembly. And anyone who feels as though they need time off can request it through their homeroom teacher."

That certainly made a lot of sense. Of course some of the students would need time to wrap their heads around and come to terms with this entire affair. They just lost a classmate to a deranged murder.

"In addition to this, the funeral for young Tenya Iida will be held this Saturday in Tokyo for those who wish to pay their respects. All of you have been invited and I would be grateful if you were to attend and give his family your regards."

A long moment of silence followed that announcement. It didn't take long before the waterworks were in full effect and most of 1-A were sobbing in their seats. The only people who didn't seem to be shedding any tears were Todoroki, Bakugou, Tokoyami and the masked boy with six arms. All of them still looked pretty surprised by this, so maybe they were still reeling.

"Now students, I'll turn the floor over to Aizawa-kun. He has a few things that must be addressed. I know all of you still need time to come to terms with the passing of your classmate, but please do your best to listen to what he has to say."

As Nezu stepped down from the podium, Aizawa made his way up. By this point, Midoriya was well aware that Eraserhead was the homeroom teacher for the other hero class. From what he knew, he was one of the teachers injured during the USJ attack along with Thirteen. And judging by the fact that he was wearing an eyepatch over his right eye, he went through his own fair share of hell during that time.

"Forgive me for having to change the mood so drastically." The black haired man began. His voice was tired and raspy and he looked as if he hadn't gotten any sleep in days. "But there are some details about this situation that you all need to be made aware of."

"Can you please elaborate, sensei?"

"From the information that we have along with several eye witness testimonies, it has come to our attention that this incident could've been avoided." He stated.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to give it to you straight. Iida purposely went looking for a fight with Stain. The pro hero that he was interning under told us that as soon as the League of Villains attack started, your classmate ran off on his own and tried to hunt down the Hero Killer."

"What?!" Several students shouted in disbelief.

"As many of you know, his brother was injured by the man as well. With this in mind, along with the fact that he chose an internship in Hosu over anywhere else, it stands to reason that Iida went there with the full intention of confronting the 'Hero Killer' himself. Stain is known to operate and secluded alleys away from the public and that's exactly where Iida's body was found. I'm not going to speculate what his _exact_ reasons were. But the fact of the matter is, he went looking for a fight and he found it."

"That can't be true!" Uraraka suddenly shouted. The girl look absolutely ragged. "Iida-kun would never do something that reckless!"

"Uraraka's right! Iida's way too smart to go after someone like that on his own." Kirishima followed up.

'_Honestly, it does make sense though.'_ Tokage thought to herself. The guy's brother was paralyzed by the man barely a couple of weeks ago and he had the perfect chance to settle the score. Revenge may not have been the "hero way", but she could understand why the indigo haired teen might have done it. He had a damn good motive and the means to do something about it. In all fairness, she doesn't know what she would do if she was put in that situation.

"I understand how you feel, but take all of this into account. Several local heroes spotted him running through alleyways in the area and it was confirmed that he abandoned the pro hero that he was with the first chance he got"

"You can't be serious?"

"I want all of you to understand that you are still students. Some of you may have gone through your fair share of ordeals, but you are a long way away from being licensed heroes. Acting foolishly and taking things into your own hands will almost always result in outcomes like these. You all need to understand that so something like this never happens again."

"Geez, he could stand to be a bit more compassionate." Kan leaned over and whispered to Kayama.

The R-Rated heroine let out a low sigh before responding. "It's better that hear this now instead of later. I agree with you though. But ripping the band-aid off is probably the best way to do it for right now."

Deciding that his students had enough of his bluntness, Aizawa backed away from the podium and retook his seat. The assembly ended shortly after that and the students made their way back to their class. As expected, a good portion of 1-A stayed behind to talk to Inui and amongst themselves. A part of Midoriya felt compelled to try and console his classmates, but he decided against it since it wasn't really his place.

However, as his group exited the assembly hall he noticed Todoroki glaring it him with a cold expression on his face.

* * *

The rest of the morning went on rather quickly after the assembly. There was a metaphorical storm cloud looming over the hero course students heads due to the information that they were given earlier that morning. But luckily their teachers decided to take it easy on them today. Once the bell rang, the students began filing out of the classroom to make the short trip over to the cafeteria.

"Are you going off on your own again today, Izuku?" Tokage asked the boy while pulling out her dinosaur themed bento box filled with a healthy serving of yakitori and steamed rice.

A few curious heads darted over to the two of them after hearing the girl call the boy by his first name. And Midoriya lightly blushed.

"Wow, you two finally on a first name basis? What a surprise." Tetsutetsu said in a joking tone.

"I-I u-u-um…"

"You should totally eat with us today." The green haired girl continued as if it was a normal day.

"That reminds me, where do you disappear off to during lunch, Midoriya-kun? I never see you in the cafeteria and you're always here before anyone else." Honenuki inquired.

By this point Kendou, Shiozaki, Tsunotori and Awase were already huddled around them and Midoriya suddenly felt the need to jump out the window and fly away from all of this unwanted attention. He really didn't want to reveal his not-so-secret hiding spot to his classmates yet. Sure, he was slightly more comfortable talking to them than when the school year started. But the boy still felt as if he needed his afternoon break from all the social interaction.

"If Midoriya-kun doesn't want to eat lunch with the rest of the class then we shouldn't bother him about it." The stoic voice of Yanagi answered for the boy as the pale girl walked passed the group.

"Oh c'mon, Ghosty." Tokage whined. "Aren't you the least bit curious about where he runs off to?"

"Yes, I am." The '_poltergeist'_ user responded without missing a beat.

"Seriously?" Tetsutetsu quirk an eyebrow at her.

"I'm also curious about where Midoriya-kun goes during lunch. But it's none of my business."

Kendou was the next to speak up. "Yanagi-chan's right you guys. Anyways...we should hurry and get to the cafeteria before the rest of the crowd shows up. We'll see you after lunch, Midoriya-kun."

"Alright…" Tokage deflated as she fell in step behind her class rep. "See you in a bit, Izuku!"

"Have a good lunch, Midoriya-kun." Yanagi flatly stated as the rest of the group walked out the door.

Midoriya wasn't expecting his grey haired classmate of all people to come to his rescue. But he was glad that the girl was able to get the heat off him. The boy made a mental note to tell her thank you for that before making his way out of the classroom and up towards the roof of the building.

* * *

Midoriya let out a sigh of relief as he planted himself on the ground and opened his bento box. Despite the terrible mood of the first few hours of the day, the almost perfect weather seemed to make up for it. As the boy began digging into the generous serving of katsudon that his mom had prepared for him, he reached into his back pocket and retrieved a small metal rod no bigger than the size of a pencil.

One of the training methods that he had learned from Katsuragi was to use this metal stick to practice his control in his downtime. And ever since returning home from his internship, he had been doing it practically non-stop. From what he had been told, reshaping things on a smaller scale would help him out when it came to bigger objects the more he practiced. He still couldn't mold the rod into a coil shape like Katsuragi could, but now he was able to create a "crescent-moon" with little difficulty.

'_And I'm still having trouble performing "Hellstorm".'_ The boy thought to himself as he took another bite of his lunch. Although he knew the steps that went into the super move, doing them was a whole different story. He had spent nearly all of Saturday trying to replicate what the woman had shown him, and he had succeeded to some extent.

When it came to lifting up and rotating the pieces, that part was easy. But the real problem came when he increased the speed. For some reason, whenever he tried to make the cyclone of debris move faster it would just fall apart after about ten seconds. Which wasn't nearly good enough.

"_Maybe it has something to do with my visualization?"_

"Ooh what are trying to visualize?" A familiar voice asked.

Out of instinct, Midoriya jumped back and launched himself into the air. Once the boy was able to reorient himself, he looked back to where he was previously sitting to see none other than Nejire Hadou casually floating towards him. "Hadou-senpai?"

"That's my name, don't wear it out! Sorry for startling you, I was trying to get your attention but you had this really intense look on your face and you were talking to yourself. Do you do that often?" The blunette asked while going in circles around him.

"I-it's a habit that I'm trying to break." Midoriya blushed slightly.

Oh yeah, this was still a thing. With all of the excitement going on the boy forgot that his favorite lunch spot had been compromised. He didn't have anything against the '_wave motion'_ user, but he really wasn't in the mood to deal with a seemingly endless ball of energy at the moment.

"So...what are you doing back in school so soon? Don't the first years have their internships this week?" The blunette inquired.

"They got cut short." Was Midoriya's response.

"Wow that sucks."

"Yeah."

"Ooh hey, I bet you learned a lot of cool stuff from Blizzard didn't you? We should totally train together some time. I think it would be a lot of fun!"

"I don't know about a-all that." Said Midoriya in a nervous tone. Something in the back of his head was telling him that he didn't want to run the risk of getting into a fight with this girl. She may have added herself into his hero notebook. But he had a sneaking suspicion that she left out a few major details when it came to her quirk.

"Come on, it'll be fun! Third years get to reserve the training grounds when they're not being used for class. So we can have the entire place to ourselves. We can even bring your girlfriend along so she won't get jealous!"

A wave of emotions washed over Midoriya's body as his face heated up. Oh...right, there was also this worry about. The last time they spoke, Tokage put the idea in her head that the two were dating. This was already bad enough in and of itself. But the fact that the blue haired girl definitely seemed like the type to gossip certainly wasn't helping.

"S-she's no-"

"Hey, did you know that you look a lot like a tomato when you get all flustered?

"She's-" The boy was cut off when the girl's phone went off, alerting her that she had a text. Hadou held the device up to her face for a moment before her eyes widened in a cartoonish fashion.

"Sorry kohai, I gotta run. Work study stuff. I'll see you around!" Was the last thing the girl said before making a beeline for the door and disappearing into the building.

Seeing as he once again missed his chance to set the record straight, all Midoriya could do was let out a defeated sigh and fly back over to his food. Although he was glad that he could once again eat his lunch in peace, he made a mental note to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

* * *

"Settle down, my young pupils." Cementoss said to the class. "All Might had an emergency and won't be able to make it. So your heroics class this afternoon will be treated as a free period so to speak. You can spend this time however you like. Also…Midoriya and Yanagi, Kan-kun informed me that you two need to head down to the support studio for possible updates to your costumes. Maijima-kun is there right now, so he should be able to assist you."

"Yes, sensei." Both telekinesis users nodded before getting up and walking out of the room with their briefcases.

Midoriya was curious about what the support department was like. So far as he knew, he had never interacted with any of the students in that class. Just like the hero course, the support course was regarded as one of the best in the country and for good reason. Many widely known inventors and engineers got their start there.

"So what did you need to go down to the support studio for?" Yanagi stoically asked.

"I got a gift from Fubuki-san that I want to add to my costume. Apparently, I need to fill out a form and get it cleared by Powerloader." He replied. Midoriya was by no means the best conversationalist in the world. But even he had to admit that talking to the grey haired girl was a bit…weird. She never changed her tone of voice and her face remained neutral at all times. The only other person in their class who seemed more emotionally disconnected was Kodai.

"Oh…"

"How about you?"

"It actually has to do with the "air surfing" technique you told me about."

"Really?"

"Yes, I tried doing it a few times but I keep running into an issue. Because I can't use my quirk on myself, I'm having trouble staying on top of whatever I use." The '_poltergeist'_ user explained.

'_That makes since.'_ Midoriya thought. Although their quirks were similar, fundamentally they worked in different ways. The fact that the girl couldn't manipulate her body along with whatever she chose to ride on meant that she would be at risk of falling every second she was in the air. When he tried doing the move himself, he didn't have too much trouble with it other than maneuvering. But Yanagi had an entire different hurdle she needed to work around.

"So you think that the support department will be able to make something for you?"

"Possibly." The girl gave him a lazy semi-shrug.

It didn't take long for the two students to finally reach their destination. The hallway that was designated for the first year classes of the support course was a lot quieter than either one of them had imagined. In truth, they were expecting the place to be buzzing with activity. But that just wasn't the case.

Deciding not to dwell on it any further, the two stopped at a large iron door labeled "Support Studio" and Midoriya wasted no time sliding it open.

"Ah!" The boy shouted as a large wrench flew past his face. If he had been standing a few more centimeters to his left, he probably wouldn't be conscious right now. '_What the hell?!'_ Midoriya turned around to see the thing lodged firmly in the wall behind him.

"Are you okay?" Yanagi inquired in her monotone voice.

"Yeah…"

"Whoops! I guess I shouldn't have left that next lying around, huh?" A female voice said in a jovial tone.

"Dammit Hatsume!" An angry sounding Powerloader caught the duo's attention as they turned their gaze inside the room. There, the 1-B students watched the man wave his fist at a girl with pink dreadlocks who was covered in a layer of what they assumed to be some type of oil. "How many times do I have to tell you to stop leaving your tools all over the place? Someone could've gotten hurt!"

"No harm no foul, sensei. At least now we know that I was able to increase the lateral speed on this robotic arm baby!" The girl smiled as she picked up what looked to be some type of tablet on a nearby table.

"That's not the point!"

"Um…" Midoriya nervous interjected. "Is this a bad time?"

Both occupants of the room turned towards them. "Ah…Midoriya and Yanagi, correct? Kan told me that you two were going to be showing up." Maijima greeted the two of them. "Sorry about that, Hatsume here still hasn't fully grasped what the word "safety" means."

"It's okay." Yanagi answered.

"Please, come in." The helmet wearing hero waved them on. "You two were hoping to make some updates to your costumes, right?"

"Yes, sir." Midoriya was the first to speak. "I was told that I have to fill out a form to add a new piece of gear to my costume that I received from the hero I interned with."

"That's right. The school board is pretty lenient when it comes to adding personal items to your costumes, but you still need to file it with us first." The pro hero explained before turning to Yanagi. "How about you?"

"I'm looking to see if I can make a new addition to mine, sensei. I've recently learned a new way to use my quirk but I'm having trouble applying it without the proper gear. I was hoping that you could help me."

"So what did you have in mind?"

Yanagi proceeded to go into a brief explanation on the concept of "air surfing" and what her difficulties were. While she was doing that, a certain pink haired girl crept closer and closer to where the group was standing.

"I see…" Maijima nodded. "So not only do you need something to transport yourself on that's lightweight, you also need a way to keep yourself attached to it."

"Yes."

"I know exactly what you need!" Hatsume suddenly appeared in front of them with a giant smile on her face. "The solution is actually really simple. I can whip something up for you in no time!"

"Wow, really?" Midoriya wondered.

Maijima let out an exasperated sigh as he pitched the bridge of his nose. "Since she won't introduce herself properly, I guess I'll have to do it. This is Mei Hatsume, she's also a first year and I've assigned her to be the one that works on both of your costumes. It's the reason why she's here."

"Nice to meet ya'!" The girl beamed.

"Both of ours?" Yanagi tilted her head.

"Yes, the support course only seats ten in each class so our students double up on which hero course student they're assigned to. As luck would have it, both of you have been assigned to Hatsume here."

"Well that's convenient."

"Oh, now I remember you! You're the one with the helmet I worked on. How do you like it?" Hatsume eagerly asked while completely disregarding his personal space. Seriously, does every girl he runs into not know what boundaries are?

"I-i-it works f-fine." The boy blushed while backing away.

Without any warning, the pink haired teen grabbed the two telekinesis users by the arms and dragged them into the room. "We don't have a moment to waste! I can already tell that the three of us are going to be making a lot of babies together!"

…

…

…

…

"What?!"

* * *

Relief is the emotion that Midoriya felt when the final bell of the day rang. With all the excitement today, the boy was ready to head home, kick his feet up and just relax for the remainder of the afternoon. His mom wasn't going to be home, he wasn't volunteering at the orphanage and it was "rest day" from his gym routine. Which meant that it promised to be a nice and quiet evening.

As he navigated himself through the hallways en route to the exit, Midoriya was so deep in thought that when he turned the corner onto the next hall he couldn't stop himself from colliding with another person. The green haired teen was able to stay on his feet. But judging from the loud thud that heard, the other person wasn't so fortunate.

As soon as Midoriya look down towards the ground his heart almost stopped beating. Of all the people he had to run into today, this was by far the worst one. The person in question was a blond man with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. He was bone thin and dressed in an awful looking yellow suit that wasn't anywhere near filled out.

"All Mi-" Midoriya clenched his jaw shut before he could finish. Silently hoping that the man didn't hear him.

Unfortunately for him, the man got his wits about him just in time to catch his verbal folly. Toshinori Yagi's head shot up, only to be met with the sight of short green hair and emerald eyes looking down at him. And a weird feeling welled up in his chest as he gauged his student's reaction. However, for a brief moment the two locked eyes and Yagi was able to catch something that unsettled him. It passed as quickly as it came, but the emaciated blonde could see the glint of an emotion that he had only seen a few times before.

Pure and utter disdain.

"S-sorry s-sir!" The green haired boy bowed and apologized before fast-walking down the hall and around the corner.

An odd sensation formed in what was left of the man's gut. And something in the back of Yagi's mind told him that he should follow the kid and ask him some questions. But he decided against it. Something wasn't right. That boy recognized him...in this form. He may have tried to hide it, but the man heard him as clear as day before he shut his mouth and ran off.

Instead of heading towards Gym Gamma like he had planned, the blonde man turned around and padded the ground towards the principal's office. All while pulling out his cellphone and dialing one of contacts.

"_Toshinori, what can I do for you?"_ The man at the other end of the line inquired.

"Namosa, I need your help."

"_With what?"_

"Can you do some digging on someone?"

"_Depends on who it is."_

"It's one of my students."

"_I'm...sorry?"_

"I'm being serious. I need you to put together a file on whatever you can find."

"_Y'know...I wouldn't do this if it was anyone else but you asking. But I can tell that it's important. Who is it?"_

"His name is Izuku Midoriya."

* * *

**Author's Notes: Wow…a lot of things happened in this chapter, huh?**

**-FYI: Monoma will absolutely get his moment(s) in the spotlight. I've already got a couple of things planned for him so don't worry. He hasn't had much presence in this story as of yet, but there is a good reason for that.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.**


	17. Ambush

A full day had passed since the hero course student's made their return to class. For 1-B, things pretty much went back to how they normally were. The classroom was pretty lively and everyone went about their days as usual. They all even managed to get through one of Ectoplasm's infamous pop-quizzes yesterday without anyone failing. However, over in Class 1-A it was a much different story.

It was hard for the students not to notice the storm cloud looming over their sister hero class everywhere they went. Sure they never interacted with them much before. But even they knew that this wasn't exactly normal behavior for them. A few of them had tried to strike up conversation with the forlorn students, but it was to no avail.

As much as the students of 1-B wanted to help out their fellow future heroes, there really wasn't anything that could be done. None of them had a clue about what to do or even where to begin. Eventually, they just decided to leave it alone for the time being and let them mourn in peace.

* * *

Once lunchtime came and went, Kan announced that he needed some students to help out for a training exercise. No one even got the chance to volunteer before he called the names of seven students and ordered them to head over to Ground Gamma and wait there for their instructor. Midoriya, Tokage, Honenuki, Yanagi, Kodai, Shoda and Fukidashi were the lucky ones to be selected and quickly made the journey down to the training area.

In no time, the hero course students were suited up and patiently waiting for the teacher to arrive. Completely ready for whatever was about to get thrown their way. However, there was one thing that the students couldn't help but take notice of.

"Whoa Midoriya-kun, are these the new upgrades to your costume?" Honenuki asked while he and the others took in the boy's appearance.

For everyone minus Tokage, this was not only their first time seeing the boy's helmet but the newest addition to his costume as well. Midoriya decided to go with the black jacket for this particular outing instead of the green. There wasn't any real reason for this, it just happened to be the first one that he grabbed. He figured that he could switch them out whenever he felt like it.

"Yeah." The boy replied.

"You didn't have that jacket with you last week." Tokage pointed out. Only slightly irritated at how this new piece to his wardrobe was hiding his build.

Yanagi was the next to put in her two cents. "Is that the gift you got from Blizzard?"

"Yeah, she actually gave another one that's green. But this is just the one I threw on."

"You totally should've worn the green one. But the all black is pretty cool. I'm sure Kuroiro-kun would appreciate it." The lipless teen joked.

"He's got a point Midoriya-kun." Shoda interjected from his position in between Kodai and Fukidashi. "You look super intimidating with the full getup."

"You really think so?"

"Hmm." Kodai nodded in confirmation.

The students stood around and talked for a few more minutes before a hulking mass of muscle dressed in red, white and blue appeared in front of them carrying a yellow sleeping bag.

"I am here!" All Might stated his signature slogan as he put Aizawa down on the ground beside him.

"Thank you all for coming here." The black haired man lazily stated. "We need some help with a training exercise that my class is doing this afternoon and I asked Vlad if he could loan a few of his students. I asked him for people with long range and destructive quirks so I guess you all fit that bill."

The 1-B students looked at each other as they processed that information. That was actually a pretty good assessment of their group. All of them could easily be considered mid to long range fighters. And out of everyone aside from Shiozaki, Kamakiri, Tetsutetsu, Kendou, Shishida and Tsunotori, they could cause some real damage at the drop of a hat.

"So what are we gonna be doing?" Tokage asked.

"My students will be going through a team building exercise as a class. To keep things simple, they're going to have to cross the training ground while navigating some obstacles. They're not too difficult, but there's a lot of them out there. So it stands to reason that they'll be pretty winded once they're done." The nocturnal hero explained.

"That actually sounds like fun." Honenuki commented.

"What I want you all to do is set up and ambush for them near the end of the course." The man continued.

"Alright." Tokage nodded. "What are the rules? Obviously we can't just go wild, but we're pretty outnumbered here sensei. There's only seven us and twent- I mean nineteen of them."

"You all can do whatever you want as long as it's not too dangerous. Actually... the more chaotic it is, the better. I'll give my students their instructions once they come out of the locker rooms. But for you lot, all you have to do is try and capture one of them. They have to finish as a group or they all fail."

"Man, that's a pretty wide margin of error." Shoda stated.

"All Might and myself will be watching and officiating in the monitoring area. If you do manage to capture one of them, we'll call it. I predict that they'll take about thirty minutes to make it to that point as a class. So that should be plenty of time for you to come up with a plan."

"Simple enough."

"You can all head over to the other side of training ground and get set up. Once you hear the horn sound, that means my class has started."

"And remember students, you all can use this as a learning opportunity as well!" All Might interjected in his usually boisterous tone. "There are many times when heroes have to team up with one another on raids and rescue operations. So think of this as one of those situations. Vlad King will be reviewing the footage of your portion of this test and I'm sure that you'll want to impress him."

"That does make sense." Read Fukidashi's thought bubble.

With that, the group of 1-B students began making the journey over to their designated stakeout point at the opposite end of the training ground. The mission was pretty simple, but a couple of them had doubts about how effective of an ambush they could mount. They were still outnumbered almost three-to-one and 1-A had some heavy hitters that they would need to work around.

"So...what's the plan, vice-rep?" Honenuki looked to Tokage.

"I'd say we take the easiest route and just grab one of them as soon as they show up. To be honest, all we really need to do is just distract them long enough for Izuku to scoop one of them and fly away." The girl answered.

"Hmm." Kodai nodded a she shook her head in agreement.

"So what, we just go in fast and loud?" Shoda inquired.

Midoriya would be lying if he said that he disagreed with that plan. It was the simplest course of action and required the less amount of energy. However, knowing that Bakugou would be there meant that it was going to be far from easy. He wasn't one to underestimate the '_explosion'_ quirk user before, and he sure as hell wasn't going to start today. Also, this was a good chance for him to get to see all of 1-A's quirks since he only got to see a few during the Sports Festival.

"Actually…" Midoriya nervously spoke up, catching everyone's attention. "I have a different idea."

"Oh yeah?" Tokage quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Yeah, Aizawa-sensei said that he wanted it to be chaotic, right? So why don't we just have some fun with it?"

"Did you have something in mind?" Said Yanagi.

"I have a few things. But I want to know what you guys think."

Tokage immediately threw her arm over the boy's shoulder and gave him a toothy smirk. "Well spill man! What's going on in that pretty little head of yours?!"

* * *

_~45 Minutes Later~_

"Hurry up and stop slacking off you damn extras!" Bakugou shouted to the rest of class 1-A as they rounded the corner.

"God, does he ever stop yelling?" A tired Jiro mumbled under her breath as she did her best to keep up.

"Just deal with it for now." Yaoyorozu told her in a hushed tone. "We're almost at the gate."

To say that 1-A was not having a good time would be putting it mildly. When they were told that they were going to be doing a "team building" exercise as a class they were actually pretty excited. With everything that had been going on over the last few days, they could use a more relaxed day of hero training to take their minds off things.

However, what they got was over thirty minutes of non-stop obstacles, problem solving scenarios and a bit more than their fair share of robots from the entrance exam to fight through.

Their mission was simple, finish as a group. On the surface it seemed like a pretty simple objective. But that proved to be easier said than done. The first issue for the class was Bakugou and Todoroki constantly getting away from them and going off on their own. There were more than a few times already that the '_explosion'_ quirk user just flat out left them with his only instruction for them being to "keep up". And Todoroki's less than stellar communication skills caused them to waste valuable time having to thaw out Hagakure and Koda after getting caught up in one of his ice attacks. If everyone was being honest, it was almost like the two of them were having a race.

If that wasn't bad enough, Kaminari had gone over his wattage limit fighting some of the robots. Satou was completely out of sugar cubes after having to do a lot of heavy lifting on an earlier obstacle. Uraraka was on the verge of throwing up from overusing her quirk. And Yaoyorozu was already halfway through her fat reserves.

Looking back, a few of those tasks could've been handled differently if they thought things through a bit more. But most everyone in the class was off their game. And it might have something to do with the fact that they were short one member of the group.

"Alright, I can see the gate!" Hagakure cheered, thankful that they were about to be done with this hell.

"I still don't get why we're being timed for this!" Sero complained.

"We'd get there sooner if you idiots stopped slowing me down!" Bakugou launched himself forward with another blast. There was no way that he was about to let that half-and-half bastard be the first one to cross instead of him.

"Bakugou-san, we have to stay together in a group!" Yaoyorozu said for what felt like the fortieth time today. To be frank, the raven haired girl's patience was starting to wear thin. She liked to think of herself as a level headed person, but even she had her limits.

Somehow, class 1-A was able to stay together in a relatively tight formation as they came upon the last intersection. Only three hundred more meters and they were going to be done. And from the looks of it, there were no more obstacles in sight. A sense of relief began to wash over the students only moments before being completely negated.

From out of absolutely nowhere, a pile of gigantic metal pipes and what looked liked screws suddenly fell from the sky right in the middle of the road a few dozen meters away from them.

"What the-"

"**KA-BOOM!"**

A massive wall of text literally spelling out the word "Ka-boom" appeared in the area behind them while crashing through a few of the nearby structures.

"What's going on?!" Ashido shouted.

'_An ambush?'_ It only took a second for Yaoyorozu to realize the situation that they were in. But by that time, it was already too late.

"God dammit!" Bakugou suddenly shouted.

Everyone in the area turned their attention to the ashen teen only to see him floating in mid-air. Actually, it wasn't just him. Without any warning, Todooki, Asui, Tokoyami and Rin also began levitating along with Bakugou.

Suddenly, the group of five were brought together and collided with one another. Whatever force had taken control of them, it was determined to keep them in place. The students began struggling to break free, but it was to no avail.

'_This is…'_ Todoroki gritted his teeth at the familiar feeling.

'_I only know of one person who can do something like this.'_ Yaoyorozu thought to herself before looking up towards the sky. There, a few dozen meters above the buildings was a hooded figure dressed in all black. "It's Midoriya!"

"What the heck?!" Ojiro suddenly blurted out.

Without any warning, the ground beneath the 1-A student's feet turned to some sort of mud and they rapidly began sinking into the pavement. Confusion quickly switched to understanding as the students finally registered what was going on around them.

"It's the guys from 1-B!" Said Satou.

***Bam!***

A few meters to the brunette boy's right, the sound of a fist making contact with flesh caught his ear. Him along with Jiro, Ashido and Kirisihima all turned their heads to see Aoyama doubling over in pain while clutching his face. Floating above the blonde haired boy, was the upper half of Tokage's body. The green haired girl was sporting a wide grin on her face.

"Alright! Pretty boy's down!" The girl cheered.

In the air, Bakugou was ready to burst with anger. This was not happening, shitty Deku and his loser classmates were not about to get the upper hand on him. There was absolutely no way in fuck that he was going to stand by and let this happen. The ashe blonde teen had half a mind to try and blast his way through that nerd's telekinesis, but there was one problem. He couldn't move. Bakugou was sandwiched in between Todorki and Rin to the point where he wouldn't be able to user his quirk without blowing a hold through them. As good as that idea sounded right now, he knew better than to do that on camera.

"Bird brain, use your stupid shadow!" Bakugou yell was aimed at Tokoyami.

"I can't." The raven headed teen admitted.

"What?!"

"We're too bunched together for me to call upon '_dark shadow'_."

"You're fucking useless! Frog face!"

"I don't know where the enemy is. And we're too high up for my tongue to reach the pipes below us, gero." The frog themed girl answered bluntly.

"God dammit!"

Above them, Midoriya was doing everything in his power not to break his focus. His role in this plan may have been simple, but it was arguably the most difficult. Not only was he tasked with taking out most of 1-A's long range fighters. He had to hold them in place and keep them from using their quirks to break free.

Forcing them together with Bakugou in the middle was the best he could think of to avoid the ashe blonde's wrath. He had no clue if the boy's explosions would be strong enough to break his hold on him, but he wasn't going to risk it. '_I'm surprised that I'm able to keep Tokoyami-san's quirk under control like this. The only reason I'm keeping them at this distance is because I don't know the range of his quirk. I guess I lucked out.'_

Down on the ground, Tokage had completed part one of her job. Aoyama was the next biggest threat seeing as his '_navel laser'_ could easily cause Midoriya to lose focus on his targets. So her job was to try and knock him out the second she got the chance. With the blonde boy now out of commission, she set her eyes on her next target.

"Sero-kun! Grab Kyoka and get out of the mud!" Unfortunately, Yaoyorozu was able to beat the girl to the punch.

In the raven haired class rep's mind, Jiro was their best option for offense right now. 1-B may have known about their quirks, but not about their support items. And seeing as Midoriya neglected to remove her from the area as well, he wouldn't be expecting a sonic attack from the girl's boots.

The '_tape'_ quirk user quickly shot a line out of his right elbow and attached it to a nearby pipe before grabbing the purple haired girl next to him. However, Tokage was quick enough to break up her left arm and send four pieces of her flesh flying towards them. The two 1-A students could do nothing as they were struck mid-swing.

Sero and Jiro let out a couple of grunts when they hit the ground. But what they weren't prepared for was Shoda to activate his '_twin impact'_ and replicate the previous blows to their abdomens with twice the force.

"Juzo, we're done!" Tokage shouted.

The lipless teen gave a quick nod before re-solidifying the ground. Locking Yaoyorozu, Ashido, Kirishima, Satou, Uraraka, Ojiro, Koda, Kaminari, Shoji, Hagakure, Aoyama and Mineta in a coffin of waste deep concrete.

"**Alright, that's enough. The exercise is over."** The voice of Aizawa said over the speaker system. "**Everyone get yourselves in order and return to the monitoring area for your review. And don't keep me waiting."**

"Wow...I'm surprised that we actually pulled that off." Shoda gave a slight chuckle as he walked out of a nearby alley way. Across the street from him, Yanagi and Kodai were also making their approach.

"Seriously." Honenuki added on before he reactivated his quirk and jumped into the mud to retrieve the trapped 1-A members.

A few minutes passed by as the students got situated. Once everyone was safely back on/above the ground, the hero course hopefuls grouped up into one giant mob. The only person not present for this was Midoriya, who for some reason decided to fly back over to the monitoring area ahead of everyone else.

'_What's that about?'_ Tokage wondered as she watched him retreat behind a couple of nearby buildings.

"What the heck are you guys doing here?!" Ashido pointed an accusatory finger at the 1-B group.

"All Might-sensei and Aizawa-sensei needed some bodies for this exercise you guys did. And we were the ones picked for the job." The green haired girl answered on everyone's behalf.

"That was Midoriya who just flew away, wasn't it?" Todoroki asked.

"Sure was."

"Deku…" Bakugou growled in a low tone with an expression of absolute rage on his face.

It suddenly became clear to Tokage why her friend decided to just go off on his own. More than likely he was avoiding any type of interaction with Bakugou outside of the watchful eye of a faculty member. The girl knew that there was some type of history between the two of them, but didn't know the exact details. All she could say for certain was that it wasn't pleasant and Midoriya obviously wished to avoid the guy if he could help it.

"Let's hurry up and get back to the teachers." A dejected Yaoyorozu stated in a neutral tone before making her way to the gate.

* * *

Back up at the monitoring area, Aizawa watched his class drudge their way onto the platform. Everything had more or less gone according to plan up until the last part of the exercise. The pro hero had to admit that he was impressed with the ambush that his colleague's students had put together. It may have had a few gaping holes that any pro worth their salt would've been able to exploit. But considering the fact that they were heavily outnumbered and had an ample amount of time to think it up, he couldn't argue with the result.

"Excellent work students! You all did well to navigate through those obstacles." All Might announced to the hero course hopefuls as they gathered around him.

"Yeah, but we totally got our butts handed to us at the end." Kirishima stated.

"Let's go ahead and start from the beginning" Aizawa interjected while scrolling through the footage of each obstacle.

A few meters off to the side, the students of 1-B were huddled up together in their own little group. They weren't really sure if they were allowed to leave or not. So just to be safe, they stuck around. While the pro heroes were going through a review of the first obstacle, Tokage leaned over to Midoriya and whispered to him.

"_So…any particular reason why you decided to go off on your own like that?"_

"_Sorry, I-I umm…."_ The boy fumble for a brief moment.

"_Hey don't worry, I get it. You're trying to avoid Bakugou aren't you?"_

Midoriya shot the girl a stunned look before adjusting his gaze over to the blonde haired student in question. In the back of class 1-A formation, Bakugou was glaring daggers at him. Thankfully he still had his helmet on so the boy wasn't able to see his face. However, the '_telekinesis'_ user also noticed the cold gaze of Todoroki focused solely on him.

"_Yeah…"_ The boy breathed out in response.

"_If you ever need some help with that guy, let me know. I'm sure I can think of a few good pranks to knock him down a few pegs."_ The girl smirked.

"_It's fine Tokage-san. You don't need to worry about me, I can handle him myself."_ He waved off. It's not like anyone ever bothered to help him out before. So why start now?

"_Alright."_

A little over fifteen minutes passed before the video of the ambush finally came into view on the main monitor. Deciding to just go ahead and rip the band-aid off, Aizawa let the footage play out a single time just so everyone could get a good view of happened. It was hard to miss a good portion of the 1-A students cringing at how things got out of hand so quickly.

"So, who wants to go first?" The man lazily looked to his class.

"Well obviously we got set up." Kaminari was the first to voice his opinion.

"Seriously, we weren't told something like that would happen beforehand." Sero added on.

"You're never going to know when you'll get attacked in real life." The teacher stated somewhat harshly. "Does anyone have anything constructive?"

Asui was the one to raise her hand. "To be honest sir, the ambush was executed really well. The 1-B students seemed to cover their bases and knew exactly who to go after, gero. I'm having a difficult time seeing what exactly we could've done."

"I agree for the most part, but there were some holes in their attack strategy that could've been exploited if you didn't panic. Would anyone care to guess what those were?"

Aizawa was met with silence from his students as they all pondered about what they could've done. Most of them were drawing a blank seeing as it was over before they really had a chance to do anything.

"What about you?" The man turned their attention towards the 1-B students. At some point a few minutes ago Midoriya and Honenuki had removed their helmets so everyone could get a good look at their faces. And it was hard for the green haired boy not to blush at nineteen sets of eyes focused on him.

"Well, from our perspective we pretty much gambled on catching you guys off guard." Tokage started as she propped her elbow up on Midoriya's shoulder. "We knew we only had one chance to pull our plan off so we needed to cause as much confusion as possible. If Aoyama fired off that laser of his at Izuku here, it might've broken his focus and let your classmates escape from his hold." She pointed to her green haired companion.

"If that happened we would've been hosed." Fukidashi's thought bubble spelled out.

"I was pretty worried about Sero using his quirk to try and capture me before we could get situated." Honenuki followed up.

The 1-A students nodded in agreement. Now that it was said out loud, the aforementioned students were kicking themselves for hesitating for so long and not reacting to neutralize a threat.

"Okay but still, this almost wasn't even fair. They had all that time to come up with a plan and Midoriya over there took out all the heavy hitters." Ashido complained while pointing a finger at the green haired boy.

"Yeah, how can we fight someone who can move things with his mind _and_ fly? He's overpowered!" Mineta whined.

What the students got in response was the sound of Honenuki and Tokage letting out a couple of quick laughs after hearing that. "Well, Midoriya-kun _is_ pretty much our class ace."

"You g-guys really give m-me too much credit." The '_telekinesis'_ user blushed with a wobbly smile. Never one to miss an opportunity to tease him, Tokage was quick to playfully pinch his cheek.

"Aww you're so adorable!"

'_Are they like a thing or something?'_ A few of the students blanched.

"If the walking 3-D printer over here used her quirk to put up a smoke screen then shitty Deku wouldn't have been an issue!" Bakugou made is presence known once again after being silent for the last few minutes.

Deciding to ignore the rude comment, Yaoyorozu considered Bakugou's words and almost slapped herself for not thinking about that. She saw first hand how putting up a cloud of smoke affected the boy's ability to use his quirk. She got so caught up in the moment that the thought of making some smoke grenades didn't even come to mind.

Tokage was about to mention how that wouldn't have worked considering she knew that the boy's helmet had an infrared setting. And that once he has you under his control there's almost no way to get out of it. But she held her tongue. It wasn't a good idea to tell people about her classmate's weaknesses.

"I agree that we could've tried to stay more level-headed, but all of you guys have long range quirks right? Once you took out most of _our_ long range fighters, there wasn't a lot that we could do." Ojiro stated.

"That's certainly not the case, young Ojiro." All Might interjected. "You shouldn't count yourselves out so easily. Yes, they all have quirks suited for this specific type of scenario but that was not the only factor. Quirks aren't everything after all."

"Tch…"

Every set of eyes in the area immediately shifted over to Midoriya. Hearing that comment coming from the mouth of the "Symbol of Peace" of all people didn't sit well with him in the slightest. But the boy quickly recovered by pretending to cough into his hand and giving out an apology.

"Excuse me."

"Not a problem, young Midoriya." All Might's eyes lingered on the green haired boy for a moment. That was just something else to log into the file that Tsukauchi was currently putting together for him.

"In any case, I want you all to use that part of the exercise as an example of not only how to react in situations like that, but how to execute on the opposite end. Class 1-B did their job rather well, even if their entire plan relied primarily on one person." Aizawa told the group.

"I have one more question, gero." Asui raised her hand before directing her gaze towards the 1-B students. "This seemed like a pretty excessive way to go about things. Why didn't you guys go a more direct route?"

Shoda was the one to explain. "Our original plan was just to have Midoriya-kun grab one of you right before you crossed the finish line. And the rest of us would distract you while he got away."

"Why didn't you do that?"

"Aizawa-sensei said that he wanted something chaotic." Tokage smirked.

"And Midoriya-kun wanted everyone in our group to get the chance to participate." Yanagi stoically added on for the first time in this conversation.

The attention was once again turned back to green haired boy who just gave out a weak chuckle. For the majority of 1-A, this was their first time interacting with the guy who pretty much defeated most of their heavy hitters in the Sports Festival. They had no clue what he was actually like, and the only thing they had to go on were Bakugou's less than stellar comments about him. Now that they got a chance to see it for themselves, they were quite surprised to see that the boy was rather quiet and non-threatening.

"Seriously?"

"Hmm." Kodai nodded.

The last few minutes of the review went by pretty quickly after that. Once everyone had a chance to speak their peace, the students were released to get changed and go back to their respective classrooms.

* * *

"Deku!" An angry voice shouted at the green haired teen from the other end of the hall as he stepped out of the locker room.

Quickly deciding that avoiding this confrontation was the best course of action, Midoriya chose to pretend as if he hadn't heard a thing. Unfortunately, the universe wasn't kind to him today and he barely made it a few steps down the hallway when a hand placed itself on his left shoulder. The moment this happened, Midoriya felt his anger spike before recomposing himself and turning around.

"You and me need to have a little talk!" Bakugou almost snarled at him.

"No we don't…." Midoriya flatly stated.

"Wha-?"

The '_explosion'_ quirk user paused. Of all the things Bakugou was expecting to hear, that certainly wasn't it. The nerd's voice was cold and indifferent, but that wasn't the only thing that didn't sit right with him. The way that this useless shit was glaring at him forced a wave of anger to wash over the ashen blonde's body.

"You little shit. Since when the hell do you have a quirk?" Bakugou regained his focus and started his long overdue inquiry.

"That's none of your business."

"Who the fuck do you think you're talking to like that?"

"You…obviously."

"You motherfucker!" Bakugou raised his right hand as he primed his quirk and prepared to let off a small blast next to the boy's ear. However, the blonde haired teen was stopped when his body was suddenly flung back to the nearby wall. Bakugou tried to move his body. But just like during their earlier training exercise, he found himself unable to do so.

"Look Bakugou…" Midoriya dryly started as he approached the now immobilized teen. "I'm only going to say this once, even though I already know that you won't actually listen to a word I say. I've done some "_growing up"_ over the last few months and I'm not the same person you used to torment every single day. I don't expect you to suddenly start being nice to me after making my life a living hell. But at the very least I'd like for you to just leave me alone."

"I'm going to kill you, you damn loser." Raged burned behind Bakugou's eyes with each passing second. How dare this worthless shit think that he can do something like this?

"And you will _not_ be threatening me like that anymore." Midoriya continued as his face contorted into something that Bakugou had never seen before in his life. He couldn't exactly place what kind of expression the greenette was wearing. But it was something between hatred and contempt. "Make sure this is the last time something like this happens. Have a wonderful day…Bakugou."

That was the last thing Midoriya said before making his way down the hall and out the door. The green haired teen was smart enough to maintain his hold on the boy until he left the building just in case he was to attack him while his back was turned. Once Midoriya was a safe enough distance away, Bakugou once again regained control of his body.

'_Deku! You're gonna pay for that you damn freak!'_ The boy snarled as nothing but rage filled every last corner of his mind.

* * *

"Hey Izuku, do you mind if I ask you a question?" Tokage said to the boy as she packed up her bag. The final bell of the day had just rang and most of the students were already out of the classroom.

"Sure."

"When's the next time that you're volunteering at that orphanage?"

"Tomorrow…." He gave her a confused look.

"You mind I come with you?"

"Huh?" Okay, if the boy was confused before now he was downright befuddled.

"I don't have anything to do tomorrow afternoon and I think it would be pretty fun. I'm interested to see what the place is like since you spend so much time there. Plus, I could help out with tutoring the kids since I _do_ have better grades than you and all." Tokage smirked and shrugged. In reality she just wanted another excuse to hang out with the boy after class and this seemed like the best time to do it since he was already going to be in the area.

Midoriya stood silently for a moment as he thought about it. He was absolutely certain that the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user had some ulterior motives behind this request that would surely lead to him getting embarrassed in some way, shape or form. But it wasn't really his place to tell her that she couldn't do it. On top of that, he was spread pretty thin the last time that he was there and the staff could really use the extra help.

"I'll call over tonight and see if it's okay with the staff. But, I think they'll be fine with it." He told her.

"Awesome!" The girl smiled sincerely. '_Hell yeah! Phase one is complete!'_

With that, the two greenettes said their goodbyes and parted ways. Midoriya was in a hurry to get back to his apartment on this particular day. And for good reason.

* * *

Once Midoriya returned home, the boy gave a quick greeting to his mother and made a beeline straight for his bedroom. As soon as he was inside, he didn't even bother taking off his uniform before planting himself in his computer chair and opening the video chat app on the screen. The '_telekinesis'_ user patiently waited as the dial tone buzzed for a few seconds before the image of a man with curly black hair and black eyes came into view.

"Wow...five o'clock on the dot. I see you're still as punctual as ever." Hisashi Midoriya said with a grin.

"Yeah well, I know how hard the time difference is on you so I at least want to make sure that I'm on time with our chats." The boy replied in a joking tone.

"Well I appreciate the consideration." The man replied. "So how have you been? Besides the new haircut?"

"Oh this?" Midoriya twisted the tips of his hair for a brief moment. "I had to cut it so that the helmet for my hero costume would fit."

"Are sure you didn't do that just to impress some girl? Come to think of, I do remember you mentioning that one of your classmates was from close to where I work." The black haired man arched a curious at brow at his son.

"N-no…" The greenette slightly blushed.

"Whatever you say, Izuku. Besides that, how's class going? I remember you saying that you had to cut your internship short in your last email. Is everything alright over there?"

"Yeah, something happened that the school doesn't want us talking about and we had to cut the program short."

"Would this "something" have anything to do with all those bombings going on over there? I've been reading a few news sites from back home and those have been happening all over the country."

Midoriya didn't really have the heart to tell the man that he was almost caught up in the middle of one of those attacks. "No, uh...a classmate just got injured and the faculty thought that it was the safest option."

"That makes sense. Just make sure that you stay safe out there."

"Yeah." The green haired boy nodded. "So how has work been treating you?"

"Same as always."

Just like Midoriya had told Tokage on their last outing, Hisashi had a job as a welder in the U.S.. What he didn't tell her was that the man worked on satellites and other aircraft. As it turns out, the elder Midoriya male was a specialist in a specific type of welding technique that was in high demand in the aerospace industry. Most of the man's time was spent working on weather and communications satellites that were sent up into the Earth's orbit.

Not too long after his parents got divorced when Midoriya was still a child, Hisashi accepted the job offer that forced him to relocate all the way to Texas in the U.S.. And had been living there ever since. The money was fantastic and he got to do quite a bit of travelling around the country.

"Cool."

"How's your mother doing?"

"Same as always." The boy replied in a neutral tone.

"Izuku…" Hisashi furrowed his brow. "As much I enjoy being the person you come to when you want to vent stuff out, you really should try and talk to Inko more. You know she's been worried about you ever since what happened last year."

The '_telekinesis'_ user let out a short sigh before responding. "I know...it's just...I don't want her to get worried over every little thing like she always does. You know how she gets. Plus, talking to you just easier and you don't freak out over the smallest stuff. Every time I try to talk about certain things she's liable to flood the apartment."

"Well, she has a good reason."

"I know…" The boy folded his arms with a guilty expression on his face.

"Can you at least try to talk to her more? I think she'd really appreciate it."

"Yeah…"

"Good." The man smiled. "So I'm really interested to hear how your internship with Blizzard went. Did you learn anything cool?"

The two men continued on with their chat until Hisashi had to call it quits about an hour later. Midoriya was glad that the man took so much time out of his routine to do these video calls as often as they could, despite it being a fifteen hour time difference.

Once that was over, the green haired boy slipped on his tracksuit and made his way down to Dagoba beach for some late afternoon quirk training. Some more junk had washed up onto the shoreline since the last time he was there. And now was as good a time as ever to practice using "Hellstorm" again since the sun was setting.

'_I really should thank Fubuki-san for letting me keep this tracksuit.'_ He smiled to himself as he hopped down the steps, ready to spend some time in his makeshift sanctuary of discarded rubbish.

* * *

**Author's Notes: A bit of a random chapter this time around. Just some more world building and fleshing characters out really.**

1**. It was actually really hard trying to find a way to get everyone of the 1-B students getting involved in the "ambush" without it seeming too outlandish. Like I said, I plan on every 1-B character getting their moment in the spotlight. So Kodai and Shoda will definitely have some more screen time. Also when it comes to the ambush, I'd like to think that even though it was only seven of them, 1-B had the advantage of ample time to come up with a good strategy. I firmly believe that if you give Honenuki, Midoriya and Tokage half and hour to come up with a plan (along with this specific combination of quirks), it was going to be something good. Sorry if you guys think I jumped out the window too much with that part of the chapter.**

2**. Yes, Hisashi is actually involved in Midoriya's life in this story. Most fics just write him off as deadbeat/villain, but I wanted to switch things up. Not everyone's parents are together, and just because we haven't seen him in canon that doesn't necessarily mean he's a deadbeat. Plenty of people grow up in "split households". Don't really put too much stock in his job, my friend honestly thought it up and just said: "Fuck it, that's reasonable enough". He won't be appearing a lot outside of a few key scenes and events, but I felt like this was a good time to introduce him. He's pretty much the person that Midoriya talks to about his problems (For now).**

3**. Don't think that I'm attacking Inko. I enjoy her character, but in my opinion she isn't exactly the paragon of emotional stability. And that's not really what Midoriya needs in his life right now. Also, with this version of Midoriya he'd find it really hard to talk to his mom about his problems when she's liable to breakout into tears and hover over him all the time. But that's just my opinion.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.**


	18. Visit

The school day practically flew by before Midoriya, Tokage and Tetsutetsu found themselves on the afternoon train heading over to Saitama prefecture. Nothing worthy of note happen besides a rather lengthy literature lecture by Cementoss that still left the three of them reeling from the absolute overload of information. From what they had been told, they were going to have a joint session with 1-A at the USJ the next day. So at least that was something to look forward to.

"So, what do you think we'll be doing tomorrow?" Tetsutetsu inquired.

"No clue." Tokage shrugged. "Since the USJ is back up and running after the break-in, I'm guessing it'll be some rescue training."

"I bet you guys are looking forward to that, huh?"

"You bet your ass I am! This is going to be our first real rescue work lesson since coming here. I like combat training and all, but this is the kind of stuff I've been looking forward to."

"Yeah." Midoriya agreed.

"I wonder what class 1-A is going to be like though. I bet they're still pretty pissed that you guys caused their whole class to fail that team building exercise you told me about." The silver haired teen thought.

"Eh, I'm pretty sure that most of them are over it by now. If anything they did really well on all the other stuff. But you can't really plan on an ambush going your way. Especially with Izuku here." She joked, causing the boy to blush a bit.

"You got that right." Tetsutetsu laughed. "Y'know Midoriya, I heard some third years talking during lunch and you've gotten pretty popular lately. Apparently one of the "Big Three" keeps talking about you."

"Oh, you must mean that Hadou chick. I heard that she was one of the top students in school."

"Really?" Midoriya raised an eyebrow at that. This was his first time hearing about it.

"You better be careful dude, or _someone_ here is going to get jealous." Tetsutetsu smirked with a sharp glance over to his friend.

"Y'know what, you might be onto something there Metalhead. What if he's really into older women? Oh no, how have I not seen it until now? I never even stood a chance. I mean you should see this girl, her boobs are enormous." Tokage teased while giving a look of mock surprise.

'_This is so awkward.'_ Midoriya internally deadpanned.

"Speaking of boobs...you should see Yaoyorozu's hero costume. I get that her quirk requires exposed skin and all but I'm pretty sure she might be some kind of exhibitionist."

"It can't be that bad."

"Dude, that thing leaves almost nothing to the imagination."

"Well if it's for her quirk you can't really blame her. It's kind of the same with Kayama when you think about it." The '_steel'_ quirk user pointed out.

"Yeah...you have a point." The girl shrugged.

Watching this interaction, Midoriya had to wonder if Tetsutetsu had developed some type of immunity to the girl's antics. He knew that they had been friends for a while so it wasn't a surprise that he knew how to roll with the punches. Maybe he should asked the guy for pointers on how to get her to stop teasing him so much.

Eventually the three teens departed the train and split off from each other. Midoriya offered Tetsutetsu to join them out of politeness. But the silver haired boy declined since he needed to catch up on homework.

"See you tomorrow! Have fun on your date!" The boy called out to them loud enough for a few passersby to give them some curious glances.

"I-it's not a-"

"Try not to fry your brain studying, Metalhead!" Tokage cut Midoriya off with her own quick jab.

It didn't take long for the two greenetts to make the journey over to the orphanage. Once the building was in sight, Tokage was actually impressed by how nice the place looked. It was your standard, three story apartment style building attached to a small park and playground. In her mind she was expecting something a bit different. But it was reassuring to know that all those kids didn't live in some run down dump.

"Hey, Tokage-san." Midoriya looked to girl sternly.

"Hmm?"

"I know this is going to sound kind of weird. But when we get in here, can you not use your quirk if you can help it? Well, can you just not talk about quirks altogether?" He asked.

The girl was about to say something but held her tongue. It wasn't a major request and it made total sense. If everyone living there was quirkless, then it was probably a sore spot for them. An it probably wasn't a good idea for her to use her powers around people who would never get them. "Yeah, I understand. I know how to show some restraint."

"Thank you." He smiled at her.

Once the two were in front of the building, Midoriya knocked on the large wooden door. The duo waited for a couple of seconds before it opened, revealing a young looking woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was dressed in a knee-length, blue sundress and had her hair up in a bun.

"Ah Midoriya-kun, you're here!" The woman greeted in a soft tone, similar to the way Shiozaki spoke. "And this must be the friend you told me about."

"Hello Kosai-san." The boy gave a polite bow, causing Tokage to follow suit. "This is Setsuna Tokage, she's one of my classmates."

"Hello, thank you for letting me come here. I know it was kind of last minute and I hope it's not too much of a bother." The girl said in a polite tone. Tokage typically wasn't one for formalites, but she knew when to reel it in.

"Oh it's no trouble at all. We were actually pretty excited when Midoriya-kun told us he was bringing one of his friends along to help the children study. I'm grateful that you're taking the time out of your busy schedule to help us out."

"Well thank you for having me."

"Gosh, where are my manners? I'm Ichika Kosai, I'm one of the staff members here. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise."

"So, who all is here?" Midoriya asked the woman.

"Pretty much everyone except for the high schoolers. Most of them are off doing their own thing, but Sasuke-kun is here."

"Really?"

"Yes, he's in the library helping some of the younger kids with their homework. He had the day off from work today so he could get ready for that science presentation of his. You can head on in and join them if you like."

"Thank you." Midoriya bowed once again as the two walked through the door.

Once inside, Tokage took the chance to take in the overall decor. The place wasn't extravagant by any means, but was definitely a lot nicer than she expected. The main lobby pretty much looked like one giant living room and the kitchen area seemed decked out.

"Wow, this place is pretty nice." The girl absentmindedly said aloud.

"Yes." Kosai nodded. "The building is only a few years old and most of the furniture was donated by local businesses and people in the area. The director wanted to make sure that the children had somewhere nice to return to everyday."

"So how many people live here?"

"Thirty right now, most of which are around middle and high school age."

"Wow." Was all the girl could say. The place looked like it could easily fit a hundred people with room to spare. But considering the fact that quirkless people were a growing minority it wasn't all too surprising that not a ton of people lived here.

Eventually the trio came upon the library. Which was just one of the larger areas on the ground floor refitted to hold some bookshelves and a few tables. Like everything else, the collection was comprised of donations from local bookstores and high schools.

After Kosai took her leave to go get started on dinner, the two greenettes made their way into the room and were met with the sight of Unohana sitting at one of the tables surrounded by a few younger children. The pink eyed teen seemed to be helping a few of them out with their math homework.

"Yo, Midoriya-kun! You finally showed up." The boy greeted him with a wave.

"Hey, how's it going?" The green eyed teen responded.

"Oh hey, you're the girl from the other day. How's it going?"

"I'm pretty good. Nice to see you again." Tokage gave him a quick wave.

Before either of the teens could get another word out, two of the children practically leapt out of their seats and approached the green haired duo. Both of them looked to be around eight or nine years old and had purple hair with grey eyes.

'_Twins, huh?'_

"Ooh Midoriya-san, is this the friend that Kosai-san was telling us about?"

"Wow you're really pretty! Are you his girlfriend? Are you going to get married?"

Time seemed to slow down for Midoriya as a sense of dread washed over his body. In all honesty, the boy should've expected something like this to happen. But he hoped that he would at least have a chance to get settled in before something embarrassing happened.

Deciding to have a bit of fun, Tokage knelt down in front of the two girls and gave them both a toothy smirk. "Well aren't you two just adorable." She laughed while leaning in a bit and ruffling their hair. "And no, I'm not Izuku's girlfriend...for now."

"Wah!" The twins eyes lit up.

"Hey, don't go putting ideas in their head. They'll believe you!" A now flustered Midoriya sputtered out.

"Look, Midoriya-san's all embarrassed." One of the girls giggled.

"Yeah he looks a tomato."

"Alright you two, that's enough." Unohana was quick to come to the boy's rescue. "It's rude to pry into other people's love lives. Now go sit back down, you still haven't finished the last page."

"Okay!" The two twins said in unison before taking their seats back with the other kids.

"Sorry about them, they're kind of over the top."

"Don't worry about it." The girl waved off.

"I wasn't expecting you to be here, Unohana-san." Midoriya said to the boy.

"Yeah, my boss let me take the day off so I can get ready for my presentation tomorrow. I didn't really need it, but some extra preparation time is always good."

"You mentioned it the last time I was here. It's pretty important, right? Aren't a couple of representatives from some pretty big schools are supposed to be there?"

"Yeah, if everything goes smoothly then my scholarship is pretty much in the bag. And I might even get to spend the summer break on I-Island."

"Oh yeah, Izuku did mention that you were some kind of boy genius." Tokage pointed out.

"I'm really not all that much." Unohana slightly blushed and rubbed the back of his head.

"So what are you looking to study if you do get this scholarship?"

"Chemical engineering." He answered. "Math and science have always been my thing."

"That's pretty intense. I definitely couldn't see myself getting into that kind of work." The girl joked.

"Eh, it's not as hard as people would think." The boy waved off.

"I'll take your word for it."

"Cool, so Midoriya-kun says that you're here to help us out with tutoring right?"

"Sure am!" The girl gave him a toothy smirk.

"Awesome, most of the kids are doing their math homework right now. I'd appreciate it if you could give them some pointers. I've never really been the best at explaining things."

"Lead the way boss!" Tokage cheered as the trio wasted no time getting down to business.

* * *

"...and then you divide by four and you'll have your answer." Tokage smiled at the two twins as they worked their way through some basic division problems.

Surprisingly, the girl was enjoying herself quite a bit. Sure, helping tutor a bunch of kids was not was not something she ever saw herself doing. But she was now happy that she decided to tag along. There was a strange feeling of satisfaction welling up in her chest that came along with doing such a deed.

"Wow! You made it look so simple Tokage-san. You're super smart!"

"Yeah, you're way better at this than Sasuke!"

"Hey, I heard that!" The black haired teen shouted from across the room.

"Midoriya-san's lucky to have you as a girlfriend."

"S-she's not m-my girlfriend!" Midoriya blushed at the other end of the table as him and a group of middle schoolers finished up their English homework.

"Look, he's making the tomato face again!" One of the girls laughed.

By this point, the boy didn't even have the energy to keep playing this game. This had pretty much been going on for the last hour and some change and had no signs of stopping. It was bad enough that Hadou thought the two of them were dating. But he didn't need the whole orphanage thinking it as well.

"Aww what's wrong, Izuku? Is the thought of dating me really that bad? Oh no, my heart. I..I think it's been broken." Tokage further egged the two on by placing her hands over her chest and pretending to be wounded.

"Look what you did you meanie!" One of the girls pointed to Midoriya with a scowl.

"Tokage-san, it's going to be okay!" The other girl patted the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user on the back.

"As much fun as it is watching you guys give Midoriya-kun a hard time, it's almost time for dinner. These two have school tomorrow so they need to get going." Unohana announced.

"Aww!" The two purple haired children complained.

"It's okay guys, I'll be back the next time that Izuku is over here."

"Really?" Their grey eyes lit up with joy.

"Really?" An equally surprised Midoriya looked at his classmate.

"Yeah." The girl nodded. "This was a lot of fun and how can stay away from these two adorable rascals?"

"You're the best!"

"That I am!"

Eventually the commotion died down and the two greenettes took their leave. Kosai once again thanked Tokage and Midoriya for helping them out and offered for them to stay for dinner. But the two politely declined seeing as it was getting late and they had to be on their way home.

With one last goodbye, the two made their way out the door in the direction of the train station. Overall, Tokage was glad that she helped out today. The girl may have only tagged along to see what the place was about at first. But now she could definitely see herself volunteering here a lot more in the future.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but that place was a lot more livelier than what I was expecting."

"What do you mean?"

"I wasn't expecting it to be so cheery. When you told me that the place was full of quirkless kids, I thought it would be more...depressing. That's not really the right word I want to use. But you get what I mean, right?"

"Yeah." Midoriya nodded his head. He couldn't really blame her though seeing as he thought the same thing the first time he found himself in that building. "Kosai-san and the others want to make sure that it's a peaceful environment for them outside of school and stuff. It's not really good for the kids to go home to somewhere that dampens their mood."

"It's really cool that you spend so much time there."

"Yeah."

"Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"When did you finally get your quirk?"

Midoriya's feet stopped as he looked at the girl with a bewildered expression. Suddenly his mind began replaying every conversation that two had ever had and was wondering if he let his secret slip. "Huh?"

"C'mon dude, I'm not an idiot." Tokage started. "It's pretty obvious that you were quirkless for a while."

"W-what do you mean?"

"First." Tokage detacteched one of fingers and levitated it in the air between them. "Bakugou called you a "quirkless user" that day in the hallway." Another finger followed. "Second, you spend quite a bit of time at an orphanage specifically _for_ quirkless kids. Third, I noticed that you have a lot of the same nervous ticks as the kids that live there. Fourth, you told me that you were homeschooled back at Blizzard's agency. And I don't really see a point in doing so unless you were having problems at school. Which wouldn't make sense unless you were some kind of delinquent _or_ you didn't feel safe there."

Midoiyra suddenly found himself without the ability to speak. Now that he thought about it, it was pretty obvious considering everything that the girl knew about him. Tokage was probably the smartest kid in their entire class, so it was no wonder that she was able to piece things together. Of course she didn't have the full story. But there were enough pieces to come to a logical conclusion.

As much as he wanted to lie to the girl, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. And doing so probably would've raised more questions that answers. "About a year."

"Wow, really?" Tokage raised her eyebrows. She certainly wasn't expecting that answer. The girl was by no means an expert on quirks, but even she knew that developing one so late was a rarity. Especially one as powerful as his.

"Y-yeah."

"Oh, alright." She nodded before continuing her way down the street.

"That's...that's it?"

"Yup!"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. That was pretty much all I wanted to know. I'm not about to try and pry into your personal life, I was just seeing if my assumption was correct."

"Oh…"

"Now onto our next order of business." The girl turned around and smiled at him deviously. The kind of smile that promised nothing good. "I think it's time we talk about my payment."

"Payment?" The boy tilted his head in confusion.

"Yeah...my payment for helping you out today. Of course I enjoyed coming out here and helping out with the kids and definitely plan on doing it again. But we need to talk about how you're going to compensate me for my time."

"W-what did you want?" He nervously asked.

"Oh nothing major. You just have to take me out on a date."

…

…

…

"What!"

"A date. Y'know, you and me. A casual dinner and maybe a movie or something. That kind of thing."

At some point in the last few seconds, Midoriya's brain had completely shut down. The word "date" echoed in his mind and once again the boy had to wonder if he was in some sort of alternate reality. Maybe all those theories about real life being a simulation were true. Either that, or he was really in a coma while experiencing a very complex and elaborate dream. Because there was no possible way in hell that this was actually happening.

"Hey Izuku, you in there?" Tokage tapped him on the forehead a couple of times to bring him out of his mental stupor.

"What?!"

"Geez dude, is going out with me really such a bad idea?"

"W-why?"

"What do you mean? I think I've made it abundantly clear that I'm interested in you. You're pretty cute, a nice guy and I have way too much fun getting you all flustered like this. Plus you already said that you think that I'm cute. And you haven't exactly been rejecting my advances."

"This is a joke right?"

"Nope, I'm one hundred percent serious." The girl smiled at him confidently.

Yet another few moments passed as Midoriya gawked at his classmate. Naturally he was thrown off by this. More so because of how casual the girl was being about the entire thing. How she could say all of that without the slightest bit of trepidation astounded him.

"I-I um…"

"Look you don't have to give me an answer right away if you don't want to. But I think that the two of us would have a lot of fun together." She said with a confident grin.

"I'm sorry, but this is just...a lot."

"Hey I get it. A beautiful young lady just asked you on a date completely out of the blue. I don't blame you for being shocked." She teased. "Tell you what, I'll let you think about it and you can get back to me whenever you want."

"I...I-I don't really know what to say right now."

All Tokage did was give the boy a bit of a shrug. In hindsight, it probably wasn't such a good idea to just spring that on him out of the blue the way that she did. But why beat around the bush when she could just circumvent all the awkwardness and get it out of the way?

"You don't have to say anything there green bean." She smiled at him while linking their arms together and guiding him down the road. "Now come on, let's get you over to the train station before you burst into flames."

Amidst all this excitement, their previous conversation finally caught up to him. He just told the girl that he was quirkless for most of his life and she brushed it off without a second thought. "So you don't think it's weird that I just got my quirk?"

"Oh no, it's totally weird." She shot back. "But it makes a lot of sense considering how you act. Most people with super strong quirks are usually arrogant assholes, but you're the exception. And I doubt if you grew up being able to do what can you do, you'd be such a cool person. Plus, it's not like I think any less of you for not having one or something like that."

"I guess that makes sense." Midoriya gave a slight chuckle. He had more than enough personal experience in that matter and had a hard time disagreeing. He wouldn't be surprised if the students in the other hero class thought the same about him.

Once the two were finally at the train station, Tokage took the opportunity to give the boy one last hug before taking her leave. The small act of affection doing it's job to leave the boy a blushing mess as he made his departure. Now that he was gone, the girl finally released the tension built up in her shoulders and let out a heavy sigh.

'_Oh god, I really just did that!'_ The greenette blushed while fanning herself off with her hands. Thankful that there was no one around to see her in such a state. '_I seriously need to learn how to tone it down a bit. He probably thinks I'm some kind of weirdo for doing that.'_

Once the girl got herself back in order, Tokage quickly made the journey back to her house. With all the excitement of the day finally out of the way, it was now time for some much needed rest and relaxation. And there was no better cure for making yourself look like a complete idiot in front of a cute guy than powering your way through a tub of chocolate ice cream while watching some afternoon anime.

'_I hope he gives me an answer soon. All this waiting is going to kill me!'_

* * *

The next day at school proved to be a rather interesting affair for class 1-B's telekinetic duo. Mainly because it was the inaugural field test for the prototype of Yanagi's new "hover disk" that was created by Hatsume and Maijima.

"Thank you for tagging along with me, Midoriya-kun." The grey haired teen said in her usually stoic voice as the two walked into Gym Gamma. At the moment, 1-B was in the middle of a free period and they got permission to try out the new equipment so long as they returned before their next class.

"It was no problem, Yangi-san. It makes sense that you'd ask me to come along." The boy gave her an honest smile. "And I'm really interested in seeing how you handle that thing." He looked down to the new piece of equipment.

Overall, the device wasn't nearly as complex as the boy expected. It was a solid metal disc that was made up of eight interlocking plates that that could be folded in on eachother. Not only could the thing be transported relatively easily. It was sturdy enough to support all of her body weight once fully extended.

The group spent quite a bit of time brainstorming possible ideas that day in the support studio. One of which was a giant glider that was simply too heavy for the girl to carry around with her. And after some deliberation, this proved to be the most efficient method. But the icing on the cake came in the form of the girls new boots.

Like previously stated, the main issue that Yanagi had was keeping herself attached to whatever she was riding. Since she couldn't use her quirk on herself like Midoriya could, they needed to find a way to work around that. And the solution that they came up with was a new pair of boots with magnetic soles. The polarity was strong enough that it would keep the girl attached to disc with relative ease, but weak enough to where she could dismount without any real issues. This mitigated the necessity of needing brackets to hold her feet in place.

It may have only been the prototype, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.

"We don't have a lot of time so let's get started. Kan-sensei said that we only have this area for half an hour."

"Right."

Using her quirk, Yanagi unfolded the disc from its compacted stated and locked the plates into place revealing an octagon shaped saucer. The girl then let out a short breath as she levitated the device in front of her and jumped on it. Thankfully, everything seemed to be working well so far.

"This will do." Yanagi simply said. "I don't plan on going up too high, so there won't be too much trouble."

"Okay." Midoriya nodded.

The '_poltergeist'_ user wasted no time in getting down to business and ascended higher into the air until she was about two meters off the ground. Midoriya followed suit by also activating his quirk and floating right next to her. With everything ready to go, Yanagi took off at a reasonable speed and began doing laps around the training area.

Over the next five minutes or so, Midoriya watched the girl navigate herself through the gym with an impressive amount of skill. This may have been her first time using the new object, but you wouldn't think that with how well she was moving.

"Is everything okay?" The greenette asked from a few meters behind her.

"Moving like this isn't too hard, but it'll take some getting used to. However, I don't think that I'll be able to maneuver that well."

"I get it, I'm still having problems with that as well. Moving in one direction is easy, but changing directions on a dime is difficult." The boy admitted.

"I think I can go a bit further though." She told him.

Yanagi then upped the difficulty by attempting a sharp turn around one of the stone pillars that Cementoss had put up around the gym. She came pretty close to hitting the thing. But by using her left arm as a guide, she was able to clear it.

"Now I get why you always chose to take to the air during class. This is quite fun."

"Yeah." He smiled.

Another few minutes passed before the girl was ready to try her next move. Without any warning, Yanagi suddenly changed directions and pulled the board higher up into the air. She had seen this move done by a few heroes and it seemed like a pretty good one to try.

Midoriya watched as the girl quickly rotated herself before doing a "corkscrew" maneuver on the board. For a first time attempt, it was pretty good. It wasn't as sharp as what it could've been. But it was still an impressive feat nonetheless.

Unfortunately, Yanagi got so caught up in the moment that she didn't think it all the way through. Once she completed the trick, she brought herself back down closer to the ground. But failed to take into account the fact that Midoriya was still directly under her. Neither of the two had a chance to react before colliding with one another with enough force to send them both back to the earth with a loud thud. The sudden impact was enough to knock the disc from her feet and land right on top of her classmate.

"Ugh." Midoriya groaned out in discomfort. He wanted to be annoyed that his classmate didn't give him any warning before trying something so dangerous in such close proximity to him. But nothing was broken from what he could immediately tell, so all was forgiven. "Are you okay, Yanagi-san?"

"Midoriya-kun, what is…."

Quickly, the boy looked down towards where she was still laying on top of him and his blood almost froze once he did. The fact that they were in a rather compromising position was the least of Midoriya's worries when he tracked where Yanagi's single blue eye was starring. At some point during their mid-air collision, the jacket to his gym uniform had ridden up all the way to the upper part of his abdomen. Completely exposing his midsection to the world.

Normally, Yanagi's demeanor was calm and unchanging. But even now the girl was having a hard time hiding the look of shock that platered itself onto her face. The '_poltergeist'_ user now had a completely unobstructed view of the multitude of scars that decorated his body.

"These are-"

Fear overtook Midoriya's senses as he quickly pushed her off of him and scrambled to his feet. Making sure to pull the jacket down as tight as he could to hide his shame. A painfully awkward silence followed as the two looked at one another before the green haired boy tried to remedy this situation.

"I-it's nothing!" He frantically blurted out.

"Midoriya-kun, how did you get those scars?" The girl's voice was unusually tense.

"It's n-n-no big deal!" He answered.

"Are you...are you cut-"

"I-I-I need to go to the bathroom!" The boy cut her off as he attempted to walk past her and make his way to the door. But he was stopped when the girl grabbed him by his arm with a rather tight grip.

"Let me go!"

"No."

"Look, it's r-really no big deal. J-just...forget that you even saw a-anything."

"You really can't expect me to do that."

"Yanagi-san I-"

"Calm down." She flatly stated.

"What are you t-talking about? I'm t-totally calm." He gave her a wobbly smile that wasn't fooling her one bit.

"Midoriya-kun, if you don't calm down I'm going to have to tell the teachers about what I saw." She told him.

If Midoriya was worried before, he was downright terrified now. Throughout their entire time as classmates, he never once heard the girl say anything close to what could be considered a threat. She just wasn't that kind of person. And a part of him had the feeling that she was a woman of her word.

Inside his mind, the boy was starting to panic. In the blink of an eye, a multitude of different scenarios were playing out in his head. And none of them were good. He wasn't too sure about U.A.'s policy on this kind of thing, and he was in no rush to find out.

What would happen to him if the school were to find out about this? Would he get kicked out of the hero course? Was he going to be put into some type of holding cell? All of these possibilities were getting worse and worse with each passing second. Unbeknownst to him, his breathing became labored, his face reddened and a layer of sweat was starting to form on his forehead.

"Midoriya-kun, you need to stop freaking out." Yanagi placed her hands on his shoulders. One reason for doing this was to try and get him to relax, but the other was to stop him from trying to run out the door. "Take easier breathes."

Somehow, the green haired teen was able to recompose himself just enough for the world to stop spinning.

"Sit down. You look like you're about to pass out." She ordered.

"O-okay." He reluctantly agreed as he planted himself on the floor, with the grey haired girl following suit.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"I'm having a hard time believing that."

"I'm telling you the truth." He shot back. Silently hoping that his words would make up for his less than stellar demeanor.

Midoriya quickly clasped his hands together in a prayer position and bowed his head. "Yanagi-san, please don't say anything about what you saw. I...I...I don't do that anymore!"

On Yanagi's end, she was having a difficult time herself. This was her first time ever encountering something like this in real life and she didn't really know what to do. To be frank, Midoriya was probably the last person that she expected to be cutting himself. Sure the boy didn't present himself as the most confident person in the world. But he never came across as depressed or unstable in any sort of way.

The responsible side of her mind was telling her that she should report this as soon as possible. But the other had a feeling that doing so would cause more problems for the boy than he wanted right now. In all honesty she wished she never saw those cuts to begin with. But now that she did, she couldn't exactly erase it from her memory.

It would've been one thing if there were only a few. But from the brief look she got, there were dozens of them. All strategically placed to avoid one another in a clean and uniform fashion. Which was a tell-tale sign that he had a lot of practice.

Deciding that getting unsettled wasn't going to help the situation one bit, the girl regained her nerve and looked at him with a neutral expression. "I don't really know what to do about stuff like this, but I do know that what you're doing-what you _did_ isn't healthy. Are you sure that you're alright?"

"I'm fine." He repeated worriedly.

"Is everything okay at home?"

"Yanagi-san, I promise you I'm completely and one hundred percent okay. Like I said...I don't do that anymore. I haven't done it in a while."

Something in the back of the girl's mind was telling her not to believe that. But it wasn't like she could verify whether or not it was true. From what she had seen, none of those wounds appeared to be fresh. So at the very least it had been a significant amount of time since the last time he did it. Against her better judgement, Yanagi chose to accept what he was saying. But she still had her doubts.

"Fine…" She replied after letting out a sigh.

"Fine, what?" He raised his head.

"I won't say anything."

"What?"

"I won't say anything about this."

Midoriya eyes practically lit up at those words and a sense of relief washed over his soul. "Thank-"

"But…" She held up a hand to his face. "Now that I know about this, I can't exactly let it go. I should report this to Hound Dog-sensei or Kan-sensei, but I won't. For now, this will just be between the two of us."

"Okay."

"Is there any chance that anyone else knows about this."

"No." Midoriya quickly shook his head.

"Midoriya-kun…" She glared at him. She may not have known Midoriya for very long, but everyone in the class knew that the boy was a terrible liar.

"O-okay." He relented. "One other person does. But he doesn't go to our school. And he knows that I haven't done it in a long time."

"How have you been able to hide this for so long? One of the other boys had to have seen it by now." She asked.

"I usually change in the stalls or wait until everyone else has already left to switch my shirts." He answered.

Well that explained why he was usually the last one out of the locker rooms before training. The girl did find it a bit odd that it took him the longest out of all the boys to finish getting changed despite his costume being one of the most simple. Even Monoma managed to make it out before he did, and his hero costume was literally a tuxedo.

"Okay."

"Thank you, Yanagi-san."

"I'll stay quiet about this for now, but I'll be keeping a close eye on you just in case. As soon as I see something wrong, I'm going to the faculty."

"Okay...that's fair." He reluctantly agreed. He wasn't too happy about it, but it was way better than the alternative.

Seeing as there wasn't really anything else to talk about, the two telekinesis users stood back up to their feet and Yanagi grabbed her hover disc.

"So...do you want to pick up where we left off?" Midoriya asked.

"No." The girl replied while folding her support item back up. "I think that was enough for today."

"Alright." He nodded.

With that, the two students began making their way out of the gym and over to the locker rooms. Although Midoriya was glad that the girl wasn't going to blow the whistle on his secret, he was still uneasy about this entire thing. Having someone know about this was quite literally one of his biggest fears. He made a mental note to wear a tank top under his gym uniform in the future to avoid any further mishaps.

"Thank you...f-for promising to keep this between us."

"I'm not really good with stuff like this. But if you ever...need someone to talk to, you can come to me. If you want."

All Midoriya could do was give the girl a half-hearted smile and scratch his cheek. "I'll keep that in mind."

That was the last thing the two said before splitting off and getting dressed. Once they were back in class, it was hard for either of them to stay focused on Present Mic's English lesson. Yanagi still had a nagging feeling in the back of her head that she may have made the wrong decision. But for now, she was going to trust the boy and keep things between them. But for the time being she would make sure to keep a close eye on him, just in case.


	19. Rescue Training

"Alright everyone, gather around!" Kan announced to the group of students currently waiting to board the buses. "This is going to be our first training session together with both classes. There's thirty-nine of you, and only four of us. Which means there will be no room for goofing off. Today's objective is rescue training, so you need to pay attention to what we tell you."

Yaoyorozu was the first to raise her hand. "Excuse Kan-sensei, who will the other two teacher's be?"

"Thirteen and All Might will be meeting us at the site." The man answered.

"Are there any other questions?" Aizawa lazily groaned out, only to get no response. The 1-B students couldn't help but wonder if the man was seriously like this all the time. "Good, now hurry up and get on the buses. We don't have any time to waste."

Right before the students began making their way into their designated vehicles, Kendou made a proposition. "Hey, Yaoyorozu-san, we should mix it up a bit."

"I'm sorry?" The raven haired teen gave the other class rep a curious look.

"Instead of dividing the classes by bus, why don't we all just get on whichever one so everyone can get to know each other."

"Hey yeah, that's a great idea Itsuka!" Tetsutetsu cheered.

"Makes sense." Jiro shrugged.

The raven haired teen took a moment to think this over before giving the girl an approving nod. Without any hesitation, Yaoyorozu made the announcement and pretty much everyone agreed with the reasoning. The others didn't really care one way or the other.

One-by-one the students formed their own small groups and got onto the buses. The group consisting of Midoriya, Yanagi, Tsunotori and Honenuki boarded the first bus. While Tokage's group comprised of herself, Kendou, Tetsutetsu and Shiozaki got on the other. The green haired girl was going to try and join Midoriya's group, but the vehicle ended up filling up too fast to make that happen.

Part of the girl was upset that she wouldn't get the chance to tease him a bit more on the ride over to the USJ. But she quickly put that aside since they were all going to the same place.

* * *

It didn't take long for the mingling amongst the hero course first years to kick off. For the most part, everyone was just sticking to their usual group of friends. But that changed when Kaminari decided to officially break the ice.

"It's pretty cool that we'll get to join classes for this, huh?" Said the_ '__electrification'_ quirk user to the group of students.

"I'll say, aside from the other day we haven't really had the chance to mingle with each other all that much." Ojiro pointed out.

"Oh yeah...I heard about your team-building exercise. It sounded like a total pain in the ass." Kaibara added.

"Eh, it wasn't too bad. Just exhausting."

"Wouldn't doubt it."

"We almost made it through, but then you 1-B guys showed up and completely took us out."

"Yeah, s-sorry about that." Midoriya apologized.

"What's there to be sorry for? You guys just got the drop on us and there was nothing we could do to stop it."

Next, it was Asui's turn to join the conversation. "Since we're pointing out the obvious, there's something that's been on my mind. Actually, it's about you Midoriya-san."

"About me?" The boy gave her a curious look. "What is it, Asui-san?"

"Call me Tsu?" The frog themed girl bluntly stated.

"Okay…."

"That power of yours, it's a lot like the "Psychic Sisters" quirks. You wouldn't happen to be related to them, would you?"

The girl's question was enough to elicit a few not-so-subtle laughs from the 1-B students that were present, especially Honenuki. However, in the back of the bus a certain heterochromatic teen suddenly became very interested in this conversation.

"What's so funny?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"Nothing, it's just kind of a running joke in our class."

"I don't get it." Jiro gave them a confused look.

"Honenuki-kun and a few others think that Midoriya-kun is actually their younger brother. They've been trying to get him to admit to it all year." Yanagi stoically replied.

"Can you blame us though? They look a lot alike and have identical quirks." Awase joked.

"And Midoriya-kun did do his internship with Blizzard."

"Plus she's the one the who gave him those jackets. And they definitely don't look cheap."

"C'mon guys…." Midoriya said in a defeated tone before redirecting his attention back towards the frog themed girl. "To answer your question Asui-san, no I'm not related to them at all. We just have similar quirks."

"Y'know Midoriya, don't take this the wrong way but you're not at all like I thought you'd be." Kaminari told the green haired boy.

"Huh?"

"Yeah Kaminari's right. With the way that Bakugou talks about you, we all thought that you were an asshole or something."

"Seriously? That guy of all people is going around calling people assholes? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black."

"Midoriya-kun's actually a really cool guy once you get past the social awkwardness."

"Yeah, he's a total fluff-ball!" The American girl joked.

"Thanks...Tsunotori-san." The boy deadpanned.

* * *

Back on the other bus, the rest of the students were having their own conversation.

"So Tokage…" Ashido started with a sly grin. "What's up with you and that Midoriya guy?"

"Huh?" Tokage looked up.

"Yeah, are you two going out or something? You looked pretty cozy after our training session the other day." Hagakure blurted out from beside the pink skinned teen.

As much fun as it would've been for the girl to tell them that something was going on between the two of them, she decided against it. Mainly because it would've been a lie. But also because she knew that Midoriya wouldn't appreciate it very much. And the last thing she wanted to do right now was to ruin her chances of scoring that date. "No, nothing like that."

"C'mon, there's totally something there!"

"I'm neither going to confirm nor deny those allegations." The green haired girl smirked.

"Well with all the shameless flirting that she does with him all the time, it's easy to get the wrong idea." Kendou joked.

"Eh, I just like seeing him get all embarrassed. It's way too cute."

"Oh...so you think he's cute, huh~?"

"Yeah…" Tokage stated in a way that made it seem like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which was enough to throw Ashido off quite a bit. The pink skinned girl wasn't used to someone rolling with her punches this well.

"It's no use guys." Kendou said. "It's tough trying to get a rise out of Setsuna. The girl's pretty much impossible to embarrass."

"Still, what's his deal?" Kirishima asked. "He's definitely not like how I thought he'd be."

"He's just shy. Nothing to it really."

"Yeah, we could tell."

In the back of the bus, a certain blonde haired student was getting irritated by the current conversation. It was bad enough that he was going to the same school as that loser. But now he was forced to listen to these extras talk about him.

"No one cares about shitty Deku!" Bakugou almost screamed.

A momentary silence fell over the crowd as everyone gave the _'__explosion'_ quirk user a series of stares. As expected, most of the 1-B students were pretty surprised by the sudden outburst. And none of them knew how to react. However, Tokage decided to have a little fun with it.

"So...is he always like this?" The greenette asked while pointing her finger at the boy in question.

The girl was met with silence before looking around the group of 1-A students. Tokage couldn't help but notice the rather uneasy looks that they were giving each other. _'__Are they scared of him or something?'_ She thought.

"Anyways...before Boom-Boy here interrupted our conversation-"

"What did you just call me, Shark Teeth?!"

"Shoji, I hope you find me rude for asking. By what's the deal with that mask?" Tokage continued on as if she hadn't heard anything.

"Don't fucking ignore me you loser! I don't care if you are useless Deku's girlfriend-"

"Bakugou, sit down and be quiet! I don't want to hear another word out of you for the rest of the ride over!" Kan quickly made his presence known as he addressed the now irritated teenager.

"What?" The boy scowled at the blood themed hero.

"Don't make me repeat myself boy!"

The ashen blonde teen was thrown off by the fact that a teacher had the audacity to scold him in front of other students. But he decided to take his lumps for the time being and sat back down in his seat. Bakugou angrily folded his arms across his chest while mumbling something about killing someone.

_'__Geez Aizawa, learn to control your students.'_ Kan thought to himself before sitting down in his own seat at the front of the bus.

* * *

It didn't take long for the students to arrive at their destination. Once everyone got off the buses, they were led into the massive building that would serve as their training ground for the day. Since this was their first time being there, the 1-B students marveled at how diverse the different areas were. It was no secret that U.A. had an absolutely ridiculous amount of funding to pay for their facilities. But this was just insane.

"Welcome students! I hope you all are having a wonderful day." The "Space Hero" Thirteen greeted the would-be heroes.

Both Midoriya and Tokage had to keep themselves contained as they finally got a chance to meet them. Across Japan, Thirteen was considered to be one of the top rescue heroes in the country. So it was no surprise that they would be among the school's faculty. "Today will be your first official lesson in rescue work. Please make sure that you absorb as much as you can and take this seriously."

After a brief overview of the facility and all that it had to offer, they informed them of what they were going to be doing for the remainder of the day. Essentially, it was going to be one big "round robin" across the different areas. The spacesuit wearing heroine then announced that the class was going to be split up into three groups of thirteen students.

"What are the groups?" Kendou asked, presumably speaking for everyone else.

"You will be divided and paired up with one of the teachers." Thirteen began. "Group A will be going with All Might. Group B will be myself and Vlad King. And Group C will be going with Eraserhead."

Towards the back of the group, Midoriya was silently hoping for two things. The first was that he would be placed anywhere but Group A. The second, was that he wouldn't be forced to be partnered up with Bakugou.

"Come young students!" The number one hero made his presence known. "My group will be young Midoriya, Honenuki, Yanagi, Tsunotori, Asui, Tokoyami, Uraraka, Aoyama, Tsuburaba, Komori, Kaminari, Mineta and Kirishima."

"Group B will be Tokage, Kendou, Shiozaki, Tetsutetsu, Bakugou, Sero, Hagakure, Rin, Shishida, Shoda, Kaibara, Jiro and Koda." Kan followed.

_"__Great, we get to spend the rest of the afternoon with the walking time bomb."_ Tokage whispered to Tetsutetsu.

"And the rest of you will be with me." Aizawa lazily stated.

"Is there any reason why the groups were formed in such a way?" Shishida asked.

"No." Kan answered. "We all just picked names out of hat."

With the teams announced, Thirteen gave one last warning to the students to be careful and follow all instructions.

The first team to depart was Group B as they made their way over to the landslide zone. As Midoriya watched them leave, he couldn't help but feel slightly worried for his classmates. No doubt Bakugou was going to try and make the exercise all about him and stand out as much as possible. And given his personality, he definitely wasn't going to be nice about it.

But for some reason, the boy's eyes seemed to linger on Tokage out of everyone. The two had barely said a word to one another the entire day and it left a weird feeling in his chest. In truth, he was still trying to wrap his head around what happened during their previous outing.

The girl asked him out on a date of all things and the mere thought of that left him reeling. Although it certainly wasn't the worst thing in the world, it was still weird to even think about. Why on earth a girl like her would ask him out was a complete mystery to him.

Tokage was pretty, smart, likable and outgoing. And he…was not. They were pretty much total opposites. Sure, she made no attempt to hide the fact that she found him attractive and went out of her way to tease him whenever she could. But up until this point, he didn't think that she was being serious about it.

"Midoriya-kun, you should really learn how to not be so obvious." The stoic voice of Yanagi snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Huh?"

"You'll have time to check out Tokage-chan later."

"W-what?!" The boy squeaked out as his face erupted into a shade of crimson. "Y-Yanagi-san, I-I-I…t-that wasn't what I was doing at all."

The grey haired girl was about to respond, but was interrupted by their teacher. "Alright students, it's time for us to move out. But before that, you must all select a group leader!"

"What for?" Tsuburaba inquired

"Things can often get quite chaotic during rescue operations, and communication is key. In times of a crisis, it's good to have a clear chain of command to mitigate any unnecessary risks. Having someone in charge to direct traffic should always be one of your first steps." The blonde haired hero explained.

The students took a moment to look around at each other. Since this was a mixture of both classes, a lot of them had a hard time figuring out who would be the best person for the job. A few small discussions broke out until Yanagi made a suggestion.

"I vote for Honenuki-kun."

"Huh?" The lipless teen tilted his head at her.

"Yeah that's probably a good idea." Tsuburaba stated as he threw his hands behind his head. "Juzo's pretty level headed so he'd be good for the job."

"I agree." Tsunotori smiled.

"It's settled then!" All Might cheered. "Young Honenuki, you'll be in charge of the group."

"Fine with me." The boy shrugged with a slight smile on his face. Or at least with what everyone assumed was a smile. It was actually really hard to tell considering he didn't have any lips.

With that matter settled, Group A made the journey over to the ruins zone.

* * *

_~Meanwhile, with Group B~_

"I'm in charge!" Bakugou shouted towards the rest of the students. Thirteen and Kan had just finished explaining to the group that they needed to pick a leader and the blonde haired boy wanted to make it very clear who was going to hold that position.

"Yeah…I don't think so." Tokage deadpanned, along with a few others.

"What?!"

"Yeah, I think either Setsuna or Itsuka should be the leader." Tetsutetsu backed the girl up.

"That does seem like the best idea." Shiozaki added, earning a few approving nods from other members of the group.

"Let Setsuna do it. Her quirk is good for this kind of stuff and she can get a better look at things than I can." Kendou pointed a thumb over to her class vice-rep. No one had any reason to disagree with the orange haired girl's logic so they all gave a series of nods.

"Fine by me." Tokage shrugged. "I was going to vote for Itsuka, but I guess I'll take point."

"Alright, now that we have that settled let's hurry on over to the training area. There's much to do and not a lot of time." Thirteen interjected.

While the group continued their journey over to the landslide zone, Bakugou was grinding his teen in annoyance. This makes two times today that Deku's girlfriend decided to try and make a fool out of him in front of everyone. Needless to say, the boy was not going to let something like this stand.

* * *

Once they finally arrived at their destination, Group A wasted no time getting down to business. The ruins zone was essentially one giant cityscape that simulated a destroyed urban environment, with multiple buildings found in precarious conditions. Midoriya couldn't help but think back to his internship with Katsuragi. Although the destruction was more widespread, it gave him a very similar feeling.

"Now students, allow me to give you your scenario for this exercise!" All Might announced in his usually boastful manner. "Urban rescue operations can be tricky to deal with considering how dangerous the environment itself can be. Across the area, there are multiple training dummies that will serve as your simulated casualties. Your jobs are to locate them, get them to a safe area and handle any wounds that you are able to treat. You'll have free reign to act as you see fit and I'll be here to supervise and correct you as needed. Remember to work both diligently and efficiently."

"Is there a time limit?" Asui inquired.

"We have this area for thirty minutes, so that will serve as your time limit, young Asui. But remember, in situations such as this, time is of the essence." The man responded. "Now without further ado, you can begin whenever you're ready!"

With their time now started, the students huddled up into one massive group around their leader and began formulating their strategy.

"So, what's the plan Juzo?" Tsuburaba said.

"First things first, we need to know what we're dealing with. This area is pretty big and we can't waste time going over every nook and cranny. Midoriya-kun, Yanagi-chan, you guys are going to be our eyes in the sky and point out wherever the casualties are. While they're doing that, the rest of us will split up into groups of two and handle whatever you find. We have a good combination of quirks for this so it should work well." The _'__softening'_ quirk user explained.

"Sounds good to me." Kaminari smiled.

"Let's make sure that we don't spread ourselves out too thin if we can help it. If you come across something that you can't handle, don't be afraid to call for help. Midoriya-kun and Yanagi-chan will be an extra set of hands."

"I'm fine with that." The grey haired girl said.

"Alright boys and girls, let's get to work."

Now that the plan was in place, Midoriya activated his quirk and began ascending towards the sky. While at the same time, Yanagi unhooked her hover disc on off the harness on her belt and unfolded it before joining him.

As the telekinetic duo began scanning the area, the rest of their group split off into pairs and followed behind them. The entire ruins zone was a complete mess, but it wasn't too difficult for them to see where all the training mannequins were located. Most of them were in places that were easy to identify while a few others were in some more hard to reach spots.

"There's fifteen in this area. Most of them should be easy to reach!" Midorya called out to the group below them.

"Where are they?!" Honenuki shouted back.

The boy quickly pointed to the areas where the mannequins were located and the others wasted no time in moving over to commence the rescue operation. Down on the ground, Honenuki used his quirk to sink a large amount of debris out of a clearing to create a "safe zone". Seeing as their quirks weren't really the most useful in this specific type of scenario, Kaminari and Komori decided to help him out and get the area ready to receive casualties.

"Midoriya-kun, over there." Yanagi pointed over to a mannequin conveniently placed in between some rubble about forty meters away from them. With a quick nod, the two flew over to that location to get a better look at the damage. Fortunately for them, the mannequin didn't appear to be crushed in any sort of way. It was just sandwiched in the middle of two giant slabs of concrete and some smaller debris.

"Most of this stuff is too heavy for me to move." The girl stoically said after attempting to use her quirk on the rubble.

"It's fine, I can move all the big stuff while you grab the mannequin. They don't look that heavy." The boy replied.

Midoriya took a moment to focus on the rubble and used some of his newfound knowledge to imagine a giant sphere in his mind around the area. After a couple of seconds, an absolutely massive amount of debris consisting of about ten pieces lifted off of the ground and began floating into the air.

_'__Did he increase the amount of objects that he can manipulate?'_ The grey haired girl silently wondered as she watched him. Deciding to think about that later, Yangi regained her focus and used her own quirk to carefully lift the mannequin out of harm's way.

With their casualty now safely secured, the duo made their way back over the "safe zone" that was slowly filling up mannequins. Once they made the handoff to Kaminari, a voice about a hundred meters away from them caught their attention.

"Hey, can we get some help over here!" Tsuburaba shouted.

Choosing not to wait for an invitation, Midoriya and Yanagi quickly flew over to where they were needed. Once they arrived, they were met with the sight of their classmate along with Kirishima next to a collapsed building with a few mannequins that were trapped underneath a wall.

"You guys need some help, right?" Midoriya asked.

"Yeah, this thing is way too big for us to move." Tsubuara told him.

"I got it!" Uraraka announced as her and Asui made their appearance from around the corner. The two had just finished taking their own casualties back to the safe zone and were quick to respond to call. "All that debris is in the way, I'll make it float and move them."

"Hold on!" Midoriya shouted.

"Huh?" The brunette stopped in her tracks and looked up at him.

"You can't go moving things around haphazardly. You don't know if disturbing the scene could cause a chain reaction. That wall is being held up by some of the smaller debris. So moving things in the wrong order is going to make it fall." He explained.

"Oh…" Uraraka said once she got a better look at the area. The green haired boy from 1-B was right, the wall was being held up by a few smaller slabs of concrete underneath it. One wrong move and the whole thing would definitely come down and crush the mannequins.

"So why don't we just start busting up this wall?" Kirishima said while activating his quirk.

"That would pretty much be the same thing." Asui bluntly interjected. "Breaking the wall down the wrong way would also crush the mannequins, gero."

"So what do we do?" The _'__solid air'_ user asked.

Midoriya took a moment to think over their next course of action. He replayed everything that he learned from Katsuragi and tried to find the most efficient way to go about this without causing them more trouble. After a few seconds, an idea popped into his head.

"We need to find something that's more stable than these rocks and reinforce the wall itself. Once we do that, we can start moving the casualties out of there. I'll go see if I can find some support beams to bring over here." The boy explained.

"I'll go with you." Yanagi flatley stated.

"Ochako-chan should go too, gero. Her quirk makes things weightless so that should make things easier for you to two. The rest of us can start moving all the smaller pieces of rubble out of the way."

"That's a good idea." The brunette nodded. Suddenly and without warning, Midoriya used his quirk on the girl and levitated her towards him and Yanagi.

"Sorry, but it'll be faster if we all fly." The greenette apologized.

"It's fine." Uraraka waved off before the trio went on the hunt for some of the necessary materials.

A bit further down the road on top of one of the ruined buildings, All Might was watching things unfold. For being their first rescue exercise, the students were doing surprisingly well. They were moving efficiently and making rather good time. However, as much as he should've been giving everyone an equal amount of attention the man was focused on one student in particular.

He still didn't know what to make of Midoriya and how this boy knew about his regular form. Tsukauchi was still in the process of putting together a file on him but hadn't given the man any updates over the last few days. But the number one hero couldn't help the strange feeling that forced its way into his gut every time he looked at the boy. There was just something about this green haired teen that didn't sit right with him. And the sooner he found out, the better.

* * *

_~Landslide Zone~_

"Alright guys, here's the plan." Tokage said to her group as they all huddled together. "Our best bet is to split into two teams. A search and rescue squad, and a recovery squad."

"Make sense." Jiro nodded.

"The search and rescue squad's job is to locate the casualties and bring them back to rally point. While the recovery squad will be in charge of staying at the rally point, treating any injuries and keeping them safe."

"So what are the teams?" Kaibara asked.

"The search and rescue squad will be me, Ibara, Sero, Jiro, Shishida, Kaibara and Koda." The _'__lizard tail splitter'_ user began explaining. "The recovery squad will be Metalhead, Itsuka, Rin, Hagakure, Shoda and Bakugou."

"What?!" The blonde haired boy growled a few meters away from everyone else. "What's the big idea sticking me here with the rest of these extras?"

A collective sigh came over the group as Tokage pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance. They really didn't have the time for an unnecessary argument right now. "Look Bakugou, we need quirks suited for high mobility and recon. And yours isn't very well suited for this scenario."

"And why not?"

"Were in the _landslide_ zone. The entire area is already unstable enough as it is. And the last thing we need is one of your blasts accidentally causing a chain reaction."

"You think I can't handle this or something?" He scowled at the girl.

"Will you give it a rest already?" Tetsutetsu deadpanned. "Setsuna's right, so don't get your panties in a wad."

Deciding that he now had enough of these class 1-B rejects making a fool out of him, the _'__explosion'_ quirk user marched up to the silver haired boy and got right up in face. "You wanna say that one more time, shitty eyelashes?"

"Look we don't have enough time for pointless disagreements." Kendou interjected. "Setsuna's in charge so we have to do what she says. And her logic is pretty sound."

The two boys stared at each other for a few more seconds before Bakugou turned away from Tetsutetsu and stomped off to a nearby area that had some stable ground. While this was going on, Kan and Thirteen were taking notes of this interaction.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Tokage drug her hand across her face.

"Setsuna!" Shiozaki immediately chastised the girl for her blasphemous language.

"My bad." The girl apologized. "You guys seriously have to deal with all the time, or does he just have an extra long stick up his ass today?"

"You kinda just learn to tune him out." Jiro shrugged.

"Whatever, let's just get going." Tokage waved her group on before breaking her body up into twenty pieces and flying over the wreckage. While the search and rescue team made their ascent up the landslide, the recovery team went over to where Bakugou was currently pouting.

It didn't take long for the group to set their plan in motion. From the sky, Tokage used her overhead view to locate all of the mannequins that she could easily identify. There were fifteen from what she could tell and most of them weren't hard to get to.

"Alright, I found a few of them!" The girl shouted down below.

"Where are they?" Kaibara responded.

Deciding to put some of her training with Edgeshot into effect, the girl gave a rather brilliant idea. "I'm going to use my pieces and levitate them above where the casualties are and use them like a signal marker. The rest of you use that to hurry up and grab them and start hauling them back!"

"Got it!" The rest of the students nodded before getting to work.

Kan and Thirteen couldn't help but be impressed by this strategy. Not only was Tokage using her quirk in a smart and efficient manner, she was also supervising her group's progress and giving out instructions as they went along. After about three minutes went by, they were already over halfway through securing the simulated casualties. While that was going on, the recovery team was also doing a solid job.

Kendou had pretty much taken control of that group and was directing traffic while triaging and prioritizing the injuries. It was by no means perfect, but it was definitely a good start.

"I must say Kan-kun, your students are rather remarkable." Thirteen said to their colleague.

"I agree, we haven't gone over rescue and recovery operations that much this semester since we focus so heavily on them improving their quirks. But this is some impressive coordination." The blood themed hero nodded his head.

"Are any of your students planning on becoming rescue heroes?"

"As far as I know, only Midoriya and Tokage have said that was their goal. But I wouldn't be surprised if a few others were to focus on that."

"Well that's reassuring. The girl seems to have a real talent for it. I guess all that praise she gets from Kayama-kun is valid."

"Yeah, I guess so." Kan smiled.

"However, I can't help but feel a bit worried about Aizawa's students. I know they've been through a lot but their class cohesion is pretty bad compared to yours based on what I've seen."

"I can't argue with you there. But hey, it's Aizazwa's class and he knows how to handle his students. So I'm not too worried about it."

The exercise went on for another fifteen minutes before the job was done. And surprisingly, the two pro heroes didn't have much to say about the group's effort. Once the final review was out of the way, everyone began making their way over to the shipwreck zone to try their hand at aquatic rescues.

* * *

Once everything was all said and done, the classes reconvened back at the water fountain to discuss how their training went and what they could improve on. For the most part, everyone seemed to be in good spirits. Except for Satou and Kamakiri who were completely drenched in water, presumably from their time in the shipwreck zone.

"You all did an excellent job today!" Thirteen praised the students in a jovial tone. "This may have been your first exercise, but you all managed to impress me."

"Thank you, sensei." A few students echoed.

"Please remember that rescue work is a vital part of being a hero and that once you get your licenses you'll have to deal with some much bigger obstacles. Here in the USJ we have the luxury of being in a controlled environment. But out in the real world things can get quite chaotic. The next time that you guys are here, we'll be throwing some more curveballs at you."

"That's reassuring." Kaminari rolled his eyes sarcastically before receiving an elbow to the ribs courtesy of Jiro.

"Do you three have any input?" The "Space Hero" motined over to their colleagues.

"Everything went well with my group minus a few mishaps. You all worked rationally and efficiently." Aizawa flatly stated.

"Other than some communication errors, I don't have anything to say to Group B that they shouldn't already be aware of." Kan followed.

"My group performed wonderfly!" All Might cheered. "Your teamwork and execution was excellent and you all managed to avoid any major mishaps. Top marks all around!"

"Yeah, with Midoriya and Yanagi there it was a piece of cake. The shipwreck zone would've been way harder to deal with if those two weren't backing us up." Tsuburaba joked.

"Yeah, same for us." Rin added from his spot next to Shoji. "Tokage-san and Shiozaki-san were a major help."

"Our group performed rather exceptionally if I do say so myself." Monoma interject in a slightly smug tone. "With myself and Yaoyorozu-san, it was only natural that we took care of business."

"Was that before or after Satou-san and Kamakiri-kun decided to take a swim in the shipwreck zone?" Honenuki shot back with a quick laugh.

"Bite me, Honenuki!" The _'__razor sharp'_ user gave the boy an irritated scowl as he continued to dry himself off with a towel that Yaoyorozu provided him.

"Alright, save the jokes for after we get back to the classroom." Kan said in a stern voice. "Everyone get back onto the buses so we can release you all for the day."

"Yes sir!" The students all said in unison before making their way out of the building.

* * *

Once the students were back at the main campus and finished showering, class 1-B was patiently waiting for their teacher to finish what he had to say so that they could leave.

"Once again, I'd like to commend you all on a job well done today." The man started. "Before you leave, I need to talk to you all about something that I forgot to mention this morning. The end of semester exams."

"Damn! I completely forgot about that." Awase cursed under his breath. (Class 1-B: 18/20)

"They may be two weeks away but you all need to stay sharp. Of course you have the written exams to worry about, but the practical portion is no joke. Use this time to fine tune your skills and hit the books. Those who fail either won't like what will happen to them."

A collective shiver went down the spines of the 1-B students at that last warning. None of them planned on failing to begin with, but now they had just a little more motivation to keep their heads above the water.

"That will be all, have a good day." Kan said before exiting the classroom.

"Damn, with all the excitement I completely spaced out on exams." Tetsutetsu clicked his teeth. (Class 1-B: 15/20)

"Seriously, with how much we've already gotten done this semester we've barely had enough time to really hit the books." Shoda added. (Class 1-B: 11/20)

"It's hard to believe that we're over halfway done with the second season already." Fukidashi's thought bubble spelled out as the boy packed his bag. (Class 1-B: 10/20)

"Eh, I'm not too worried about the exams." Tokage smirked. "Everything else has been pretty easy so far." (Class 1-B: 1/20)

Now it was Honenuki's turn to throw in his two cents. "I still can't believe that you have the best grades in class. Y'know, you're deceptively smart for someone so laid back." (Class 1-B: T-4/20)

"What can I say, I'm more than just a gorgeous face." The girl shot him a toothy smirk with a flip of her hair.

"Still, I wonder what the practical exam is going to be?" Midoriya wondered out loud. (Class 1-B: T-4/20)

Deciding to let the others in on the secret, Kendou gave the boy a reassuring smile as she made her way over to the group. "I wouldn't worry about it too much. My neighbor Tamaki is a third year and he told me that we're going to be fighting those robots from the entrance exam again. So it should be a piece of cake." (Class 1-B: 5/20)

"Seriously, that's all?" Yanagi asked. (Class 1-B: 9/20)

"Man, that's such a relief." The _'__steel'_ quirk user sighed. "Fighting those robots should be no sweat."

"Don't get too comfortable, Metalhead. If anything, you should be worried about the written exams. I mean, Pony has a higher class ranking than you and Japanese isn't even her first language." The green haired girl joked. Unintentionally destroying the rest of her long time friend's confidence.

"Math is a language universal!" The horned girl cheered out. (Class 1-B: 14/20)

"Still though, we're all gonna have to hit the books pretty hard. With how much we focus on our heroics classes the rest of it is left up to us half the time."

"I agree. I'm still having some misgivings about Hero Art History." Shiozaki nodded. (Class 1-B: 13/20)

Suddenly a lightbulb went off over Tokage's head. A deviously brilliant idea formed in her mind that would enable her to kill two (or three) birds with one stone.

"Oh I know, we should all study together before the exams!"

"What?" Everyone looked to her.

"Think about it, if we all get together for some study sessions then we can piggyback off of eachother and pick up the slack."

"That's not a bad idea." Kendou rubbed her chin in thought.

"Yeah, with Midoriya, Juzo and Itsuka there it would help out a ton." The _'__steel'_ quirk user agreed.

"It still won't be much help with the practical exam. But for that we'll all pretty much be on our own anyway." The green haired girl added.

"Well I'm all for it. What about you guys?" Honenuki looked to the rest of the group.

Kendou, Shiozaki, Tsunotori and Yanagi all gave a series of approving nods at the idea. In times like this there were no real downsides to forming their own study groups. As a whole, the entire group was pretty well balanced in terms of academic ability. So the idea was easy to get behind. The only person who hesitated was Midoriya.

"What about you, Izuku?" Tokage looked at the boy sitting quietly at his desk.

"Wait, you mean me too?" He gazed at her curiously.

"Hell yeah! What, did you think I wasn't going to invite _you_ of all people?" The girl smirked as she leaned forward on his desk and slightly invaded his personal space.

A slight blush formed on his cheeks at the girl's close proximity. "O-oh...u-um sure...okay."

"We can iron out the details later, but for now I have to hurry and catch my train. I'll see you guys tomorrow." Kendou gave the other a quick wave before making her exit. Shortly followed by Yanagi, Shiozaki, Honenuki and Tsunotori.

"You can go on without me, Metalhead. I'll catch up to you in a bit."

"Cool." Tetsutetsu shrugged as he grabbed his bag and took his leave. Leaving the two greenettes alone in the classroom.

Now that they were alone, Midoriya's heart rate elevated slightly as Tokage sat down on top of his desk. The girl was giving him a devious smirk and he had a pretty good feeling as to what was on her mind.

"So...have you decided yet?" She asked in a slightly sultry tone.

"W-well I-I um…."

"Y'know, you _can_ say no. It won't hurt my feelings too much if you don't want to." The girl's voice shifted ever so slightly.

Every instinct in Midoriya's body was telling him to leave as soon as possible. But a part of him knew that wasn't the right choice. It was bad enough that he was making the girl wait on his response. But he didn't want her to get the wrong idea about him.

"It's not that I don't w-want to. It's just that...this is k-kinda coming from out of nowhere."

"How so?"

"I just never thought...I've never really been in this kind of position before."

"Hey, I get it." She gave him an honest grin before leaning down a bit more. "As long as we're being honest, neither have I. You're the first person I ever asked out, so we're kinda in the same boat."

"Wait, really?" He gave her a confused look.

"Yeah! What, do you think I throw myself at every hot guy that catches my attention?"

"N-no, of course not."

"Phew!" She pretended to wipe some imaginary sweat off her forehead. "For a second there I thought you were under the impression that I was easy or something."

"I don't think that at all." He shook his head.

"Glad to hear it."

"Why me though?" That was certainly the million yen question. There were plenty of guys in their class alone who were much better options in his opinion.

"I already told you back when we left the orphanage. Like I said, it's not like I hide the fact that I find you attractive. Plus, I think we'd look really cute together."

"Oh…"

"So, what do you say? Are you at least willing to give it a shot? I promise the two of us will have a good time. And if you don't, then we can forget the entire thing ever happened."

"But…"

Midoriya's mind was split into two parts. On one hand, he wasn't entirely opposed to the idea of going out on a date. Even though it still sounded completely insane for him of all people to do something like that. On the other, his nerves were getting the better of him. The boy only started actively interacting with people this year.

His eyes suddenly shifted over to Tokage who was looking at him with a slightly worried expression.

If he were being honest, going out with the girl did actually sound like it would be fun. And it wouldn't be their first time hanging out alone. The previous times the two had some kind of outing, he enjoyed himself quite a bit. And even though she was a bit over the top at times, her personality was pretty refreshing and entertaining. And it certainly wasn't like he didn't find her attractive. There were more than a few times this year that he caught himself looking at her body for slightly too long, even though he would never admit to it out loud.

Another few seconds of silence passed between the two before the boy mumbled something under his breath.

"What was that?" Tokage asked as she detached her right ear and held it closer to his lips.

_"__I g-guess we c-could give it a s-shot."_ He nervously repeated in the same volume with a deep redness on his face.

"Really?" The girl smiled at him in disbelief.

"Y-yeah."

On the outside, Tokage managed to keep her composure while giving the boy a warm grin. But on the inside…

_'__Oh, fuck yeah! That was definitely a yes! Score!' _

"Awesome!" Tokage patted him on the shoulder. "You had me worried there for a minute. I promise we'll have an awesome time, green bean!"

"Okay."

"I'll text you later to work out the details, but for now I have to hurry up and catch my train. See ya' later, hot stuff." Was all the girl said before quickly exiting the room. Leaving Midoriya confused about her sudden retreat.

A brief moment passed before the reality of the situation finally caught up to his brain. _'__Oh my god, what did I just do?! I just agreed to go out on a date. A date! With a pretty girl! Is this really happening right now?!'_

Meanwhile in hallway, Tokage was doing her best to bring down her heart rate. _'__Holy fucking shit! He said yes! I was almost certain he was gonna shoot me down. I thought I was gonna die in there with how nervous I was. That was way easier than what I imagined!'_

After slapping herself in the face a couple of times and taking a deep breath, the green haired girl regained her composure and made her way out of the building with a rather goofy smile on her face. The kind that made your face hurt if it was stuck in that position for too long. Now that she had that hurdle out of the way, it was time to begin phase two of her operation.

* * *

_~Principal Nezu's office. Two hours later.~_

"Thank you all for seeing me on such short notice." Detective Naomosa Tsukauchi addressed the group of five men sitting across the table from him. At the moment, himself, Principal Nezu, an older hero who goes by Gran Torino, Sir Nighteye, Toshinori Yagi and a young student by name of Mirio Togata were all in attendance.

"It's no trouble at all, Tsukauchi-kun."

"I assume that Toshinori has brought all of you up to speed on the situation?"

"Somewhat."

"I'm still kind of in the dark about what's going on." The blonde haired teen raised his hand.

Togata's confession was enough to elicit a slight scowl toward Yagi from the detective.

"I didn't want to worry the boy unless we had concrete information to work with." The emaciated blonde clasped his hands together.

"I guess that's fine." The black haired man sighed out. "To keep things simple, Toshinori had a rather interesting encounter the other day with one of the first year students here at U.A.. A young boy by the name of Izuku Midoriya."

"Oh, you mean that first year with the telekinesis quirk? That guy's pretty strong."

"I agree, Midoriya-kun is quite powerful indeed." Said the unidentified mammal.

"So what's going on?"

"On my way out of the school the other day, I ended up bumping into young Midoriya in one of the hallways. It was an ordinary encounter that wouldn't have meant much if he hadn't recognized me...in this form." Yagi waved his hands around his emaciated body.

"Wait, what?" Nighteye gave the man a shocked look. "Are you certain of this?"

"Without a doubt. Not only did he call me by hero name, but there was no mistaking the look in his eyes...along with his reaction."

"How?" Gran Torino asked.

"I have no idea."

"You can't be serious? You must've run into this boy at some point before for him to recognize you outside of your hero form." Nighteye interjected.

"Gentlemen, for the sake of time let's keep the sidebar to a minimum and listen to what Tsukauchi-kun has to say."

"Thank you, sir." The man said before handing out a pile of manila folders to everyone present. "It took some time, but I was finally able to gather a decent amount of information on the young man in question."

"What do you have?"

"Simply put, most of the information regarding Izuku Midoriya is rather unremarkable. He was born and raised here in Mustafu, currently lives with his mother. His dad is currently working in the U.S. and he's never gotten in trouble with the law."

"I'm sensing a "but" coming." Togata stated.

"But...that's pretty much where the normal stuff ends."

"Explain."

"Let's start with school. First things first, Midoirya went to Aldera Middle School before attending U.A.. Coincidently, another one of your students by the name of Katsuki Bakugou went there at the same time he did."

"Nothing out of the ordinary about that."

"I agree, but things suddenly changed when he stopped attending classes there part way through his final year."

"Go on."

"Please turn to page six in your files." The detective directed the group. As everyone followed the man's order, all of them stopped when they were met with a missing person's report that had a picture of the boy's face on it. "A little over ten months before the start of the school year, Midoriya suddenly went missing for a period of three and a half weeks."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, the boy's mother filed that report a day after he didn't come home. There was a bulletin put out to the local precincts, but their investigation was less than thorough as it should've been."

"Why is that?" Gran Torino inquired.

"I suspect that it might have something to do with the boy's status during that time."

"His status?"

"Read his description at the bottom of the page."

"Izuku Midoriya, age fourteen, green hair, green eyes, quirk...none?" Yagi read the paper out loud.

"What?"

"I see." Nezu frowned.

"Yes, I suspect that the police departments in the area didn't do their due diligence about this incident due to the fact that Midoriya was quirkless...at the time. It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened. But that's a matter that we'll have to put on the back burner for now."

"That's terrible." Togata grimaced and clinched his fist.

"I agree, but back to the matter at hand. Shortly after Midoriya suddenly showed up at his home three weeks after his disappearance, he and his mother updated his status in the quirk registry. Also, he was officially pulled out of his old middle school and attended online classes to finish out the rest of his compulsory education."

"I don't like this." A dark feeling washed over the _'__jet'_ quirk user's body.

"Nezu-san, did this not bring up any alarms prior to him attending school here?"

"U.A. allows homeschooled children to apply just like any other. This year alone we had over three dozen participate in the entrance and recommendation exams. Also, we only do checks on possible criminal records, nothing more."

"So let me get this straight." Togata began. "Midoriya suddenly vanishes for almost a month and then miraculously shows back up with a powerful quirk?"

"This has All for One written all over it."

A silence fell over the group as the name of one of the most terrifying individuals in the history of Japan lingered in the air. With the recent incidents at the school and in Hosu, there was no doubt in their minds that the man in question was still alive.

"Let's not jump to conclusions yet Sasaki-san." Nezu spoke.

"Sir-"

"He's right, people developing quirks late isn't exactly unheard of." Gran Torino cut him off.

"But at fourteen years old? Don't be ridiculous! Given the information that the detective has provided us, it's the only logical explanation."

"Toshinori, what are your impressions of this boy? He's one of your students, right?"

"Young Midoriya is a rather quiet boy but a model student. From what I've seen he's not very social but he is one of the better students in my class." Yagi explained.

"Hadou said the same thing about him. According to her, he's pretty shy and jumpy." Togota added. His blue haired friend had actually mentioned him quite a few times when they hung out.

"Has anything he's done stood out to you as odd?"

"Yes."

"Please...fill us in."

"There have been quite a few times this year when I've noticed him giving me some rather concerning looks during class. And he's made no attempt in hiding the possibility that I might not be his favorite person in the world. Of course I have no way of knowing what's going on inside that head of his. But it's quite disturbing."

Deciding that he was through with everyone dancing around the subject, Nighteye slammed his hand on the table. "We _must_ bring this boy in for questioning and figure out what he knows! Obviously he has some connection to All for One and the more time he spends out in the open the bigger a threat he could become."

"What are you saying, sir?"

"Think about Mirio, there was a break-in at the school not too long ago. It wouldn't be surprising if he was somehow involved in that. If he _is_ working for All for One, then he might also have connections with the League."

"Sasaki-san, please calm yourself." Nezu said.

"But-"

"It would be a bad idea for us to try and interrogate a student based on speculation alone. As of this moment, we have no hard evidence for Tsukauchi-kun to bring him in. Also, doing something so crass would possibly draw some unwanted attention. Like Toshinori-kun said, Midoriya-kun is a model student. He hasn't done anything to warrant such action."

"We are talking about the same boy who choked out another student during your Sports Festival, are we not?"

"That's hardly a good enough reason to raise any suspicion."

"Listen, our best bet to solve this entire issue is for myself and Tsukauchi to use our quirks on him to get some information."

"And how do you suppose we go about doing that? Having a police officer talk to him is already suspicious enough. But a hero with the quirk to see into the future is a major red flag."

Nighteye held his tongue since he couldn't come up with an immediate answer. The hero decided to concede and leaned back in his chair.

"For now we're simply going to monitor Midoriya-kun and watch his actions. Since Toshinori-kun is his teacher, he'll have eyes on him more than anyone else. However, I will personally be talking to him myself sometime in the near future."

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Nezu?"

"I don't see anything wrong with a principal deciding to have a simple chat with one of his more talented students."

"I agree with Nezu-san. Talking to either myself or Nighteye would cause some suspicion. Since the boy knows what Toshinori's true form looks like, it's reasonable to believe that he has a fair bit of information on him as well. Including his associates."

"Alright." Nighteye folded his arms across his chest.

"In the meantime, Togata-kun can you do something for me?"

"Sure sir."

"I would like for you to try and get a bit more information on Midoriya-kun through Hadou-san if at all possible. That friend of yours isn't exactly tight-lipped about things, so it shouldn't be an issue."

The blonde haired teen ran a hand through his hair as he thought about this request. "To be honest sir, it's a bit dishonest to do something like that. But since this situation is kind of serious, I'll see what I can do."

"Then we're all in agreeance. For the time being, we're going to keep our distance and watch the boy closely. If any of you notice anything suspicious, update Tsukauchi-kun immediately."

"Agreed. I'm still working the League of Villains case with the police. If he crosses paths with anyone of interest, I'll keep you posted."

"Meanwhile, I'll do some more digging on Midoriya and see what comes up. There are a few interesting things that I've found that I want to look further into." The detective added.

With nothing else left to say, the meeting between the group adjourned. As he was making his way out the building, Yagi still couldn't help the nagging feeling in the back of his head. Something about that boy seemed familiar, but still couldn't quite put his finger on it.

_'__What's your story, young Midoriya?'_

* * *

**Author's Notes:**** Let's just get it out of the way, yes...Mirio currently has OfA. To be honest, I didn't trust anyone else in this story but him to have that quirk. So sorry to disappoint you guys if you were hoping for someone else. I'm not sure when the "Big Three" will make their official introduction in the story. But I promise you guys that it's going to be good.**

1**. I really wasn't trying to pick on Bakugou in this chapter, but I had a really hard time figuring out how his quirk would be useful in rescue scenarios. Also, I just wanted him and Tokage to have some type of interaction. So this is what I came up with.**


	20. Training Day

Saturday was a somber affair for the students of the U.A. hero course. Particularly for the members of 1-A. For the most part, they had managed to keep their minds off of the death of Tenya Iida. However, once the day of the funeral came around, there was no hiding how distraught they all were.

As expected, class 1-B also attended the ceremony to pay their respects. But most of them couldn't help but feel out of place amongst the mourners.

This was especially true for both Midoriya and Tokage. For Midoriya, he had never really had a conversation with Iida. So it felt a bit awkward to go to a memorial service for the taller boy. And for Tokage, the only time she ever interacted with him was during the one class rep meeting they had at the beginning of the semester.

But today was not about them or their feelings on the matter. They were here for emotional support...which also was a role that neither of them were familiar with.

The ceremony was simple enough. The Principal spoke, as did All Might. Both of them talking about the importance of being a hero even as the community was hurting. And about the type of person Iida was, as a loving son, brother, student and friend.

Once things were all said and done, the crowd broke apart. Some chose to leave, others stayed and talked to remember their fallen friend. Uraraka in particular looked as though she was moments away from breaking down, but Asui seemed to have that covered. However, there was one detail that Midoriya couldn't help but notice. And that was Bakugou's absence altogether. He doubted that the two of them were anything even close to friends, but it was still a bit odd that he didn't even bother to show up.

Deciding not to dwell on it, the boy briefly said a few words to the Iida family and made his way home. He didn't really know how to operate in this situation, so he thought it was best for him to give everyone their time to grieve and heal their wounded hearts.

* * *

_~Super Friends~_

T-Rex: How's everybody doing?

Fist: I'm good.

Dumbbell: Pretty good.

Skeleton: Hanging in there.

Cross: My heart is still a bit heavy from the ceremony. But I'm doing well.

Ghost: Same.

Skeleton: I don't want to sound like that guy. But I felt super awkward being there.

Dumbbell: For real. Everyone around me was crying their eyes out and I had no idea what to do.

Dumbbell: Does that make me a bad person?

Fist: I don't think so. Barely a few of us have ever talked to Iida-kun before. So it's understandable.

Cross: Agreed. What matters is that we were there to pay our respects and support our fellow students.

Ghost: It was still incredibly awkward though.

Apple: Yeah.

Fist: So why'd you decide to text all of us?

T-Rex: To see if we were still on for the study group. We didn't really come up with a plan before the weekend and we don't have a lot of time before exams.

Dumbbells: That reminds me!

Dumbbell: Awase wanted to join us since he's doing terrible and class. Is that okay with you guys?

T-Rex: Fine with me.

Skeleton: The more the merrier!

Fist: I'm fine with it.

Dumbbell: Cool.

_~Yosetsu Awase has been added to the chat.~_

Welding Torch: What's up?!

Dumbbell: WAZZUP!

Skeleton: WAZZZUUUP!

Welding Torch: WHAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUUUUUP!

Ghost: Never do that again.

Cross: Agreed.

T-Rex: Now that the bro-tribe has been reunited, let's get down to business. We need to come up with a date and time.

Fist: How about this weekend?

Fist: We can do whatever individual studying we need to over the week and then have a giant cram session so everything is fresh in our minds come exam day.

Apple: Sounds good to me.

T-Rex: How about Saturday at around 13:00?

Fist: Sure

Skeleton: Cool

Dumbbell: K

Cross: Sure

Ghost: Acceptable

Rabbit: Ok

T-Rex: Sweet! We can do it over at my place since we have enough space.

Fist: Your dad wouldn't mind?

T-Rex: Metalhead comes over all the time and he doesn't have a problem with it. And I'm sure that you guys are actually house trained.

Dumbbell: Dude!

T-Rex: You'll be alright.

Fist: Alright, Saturday at Setsuna's house it is.

T-Rex: Bring snacks! I feel like we're going to be going at this for a while.

Dumbbell: I got chips!

Welding Torch: I got drinks!

Skeleton: I can order us some pizzas.

Ghost: I'll bring some cookies.

Fist: Aww man, I was gonna do that. I'll figure out something else.

Cross: I shall bring a salad.

Apple: I'll have to think about it.

Rabbit: I'll bring some fruit and bagels.

T-Rex: Don't worry Izuku, you don't have to bring anything since you're already a snack.

Dumbbell: That was so lame…

Cross: Indeed.

Fist: Setsuna, I envy your confidence sometimes.

Skeleton: I'll give it a 3 out of 5.

Welding Torch: How much you guys wanna bet that Midoriya just passed out?

Ghost: It was rather clever. I'll give her that.

T-Rex: Thank you!

Fist: On that note, I have practice today at the dojo so I need to get going. I'll see you guys at school.

Rabbit: Same

Apple: Me too.

Ghost: Goodbye.

Dumbbell: Yeah, I'm gonna go take a nap.

Cross: Agreed, I hope all of you have a splendid rest of your weekend.

Welding Torch: Deuces!

T-Rex: You people are no fun! Whatever, catch y'all at school.

* * *

Once Monday came around, things pretty much went back to normal for the hero course hopefuls. They were scheduled to have another joint class with 1-A today and the students were definitely looking forward to it.

"**Will first year student, Izuku Midoriya please report to Principal Nezu's office. I repeat, will Izuku Midoriya please report to Principal Nezu's office."**

"Wait, what?" Midoriya looked up at the sky in disbelief. Why would the principal call for him of all people?

"Geez Midoriya, what did you do?" Awase asked across the classroom.

"Dude, are you in trouble in something?"

"I knew it, it was only a matter of time before he was found out." Tokage joked while dramatically shaking her head.

"I-I don't know…"

"Alright class settle down!" Midnight silenced the students with a crack of her whip. "Midoriya, it appears that you've been a _very_ naughty boy. Hurry and report to the principal's office to receive your punishment."

"Oooh!" A few of the other students cooed with a bit of laughter.

"R-right." The boy stood up from his seat and made his way out of the classroom. He had a strange feeling in his gut and his nerves were already starting to get the better of him. This was his first time ever being singled out like this. Whatever this was all about, it probably wasn't good.

* * *

Barely ten minutes later, the green haired boy found himself standing in front of the large wooden doors that served as the entrance into Nezu's office. Midoriya gave one final uneasy gulp before placing his hand on the door and giving three forceful knocks.

"Come in!" The cheery voice of the unidentified mammal said from beyond the barrier.

Midoriya did as he was instructed and shakily entered the room. There, he was met with the sight of the principal sitting comfortably at his desk. The man was stirring a cup of tea and had an unassuming smile on his face.

"Midoriya-kun, please have a seat." He motioned his paw to the open chair in front of him.

"Y-yes, s-s-sir." The boy nodded before doing as he was told.

"First things first Midoriya-kun, you are not in trouble."

"Really?"

"Yes." Nezu reassured him.

"So what is this about then, sir?"

"Midoriya-kun, is it that strange for the principal of such a fine institution like U.A. to take an interest in one of his more talented students and have a simple chat over some tea?"

"Talented?" Midoriya said in slight bewilderment. This was the first time he could recall anyone ever calling him such a word. "I-I'm really not all that much, sir."

"I disagree Midoriya-kun. Based on the reports I've read and the training footage that I've seen, you seem to be quite the capable young man."

"You really give me too much credit." The boy bashfully rubbed the back of his head.

"Midoriya-kun please, after being at this school for as many years as I have. You develop quite the eye for young hero prospects." The man continued. "I wanted to talk to you for a bit and ask a few questions, if you don't mind."

"Uh, okay...sure."

"Excellent!" He clapped his paws together. "So Midoriya-kun, tell me a bit about yourself. I've already read over your student files, but those only tell part of the story."

"There's not a whole lot to tell, honestly. I'm a pretty average person."

"An average person with an above average quirk." He shot back. "I'm not as well versed on telekinetic quirks as I would like to be. But even I know that possessing the ability to fly puts you in rather exclusive company."

"Yeah, I've been told that a few times." The boy answered. According to Katsuragi, only her, her sister, a retired hero in England and himself possess such a rare skill.

"Even one of our alumni, Fubuki Katsuragi has taken an interest in you. Both her and her older sister were very exceptional students. It's no wonder why she extended her hand out to you. I assume she's already talked to you about interning with her in the future?"

"Yes, sir."

"How excellent."

"I guess so."

"Now, onto our next topic. While looking over your file, I noticed that you were homeschooled before attending U.A.."

"Yes…"

"Of course there is nothing wrong with that, I'm just curious. Your grades prior to leaving your old school were exceptional. You were even tied with second place amongst your class before leaving."

"That is true, sir."

"Coincidentally, the person that you tied with was another one of our more popular students, Katsuki Bakugou."

Midoriya's entire body tensed ever so slightly. To the untrained eye, it wouldn't even have registered. But Nezu being the intelligent being that he was, caught it almost instantly. Obviously there was something there that required further exploration.

"Yes...we used to be classmates."

"How interesting, two former colleagues ending up at the same hero school. Of course, something like this is not uncommon. I believe two of your own classmates, Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu and Setsuna Tokage also went to school together prior to enrolling at U.A."

"Yes sir, their good friends."

"What about you and Bakugou-kun? Were you two friends?"

"No sir." Midoriya didn't even hesitate to give the answer.

"I thought that was the case." The man responded. "Given Bakugou-kun's rather...abrasive personality, I doubt that he would have many people that were willing to call him themselves his friend."

"I agree sir, he's a bit rough around the edges."

"That's a fair assessment." He nodded before changing topics. In matters such as these it was best to keep the conversation flowing in different directions to keep a person on their toes. "So tell me, Midoriya-kun. What was your reason for wanting to become a hero? I'm always interested in hearing about what motivates the youth of today to pursue such a dangerous career field."

"Well...I guess the simple answer would be that I've always to help people sir." Midoriya answered honestly. "That's pretty much what it boils down to."

"That's rather simple, but noble nonetheless. Most children these days have aspirations of fame and fortune...what are your thoughts on that?"

Midoriya racked his brain for a moment as tried to find the right words to convey his thoughts on the matter. Once he came up with what he felt was a suitable response, he had no trouble answering the man's question. "I'm not really in a position to judge others on their goals. As long as they do their jobs as heroes and protect people it doesn't really matter what their motives are."

"That's a very mature answer."

"Not really."

"Even so, being here at U.A. puts you right next to some rather famous heroes. Except for Eraserhead, Vlad King and Snipe, we have no shortage of well known heroes amongst our staff. Why even the number one hero All Might is one of your teachers."

"Yeah...it's pretty crazy." Midoriya's voice slightly tensed.

"Practically everyone is a fan of him and his work as the "Symbol of Peace". Would it be too bold of me to assume that you're one as well?"

The slight bit of hesitation the boy gave was more than enough for Nezu to see that this was a hot button topic for him. "Honestly sir...I-I've never really been a fan of his. I appreciate all that he's done for the country and his work as a hero. But he's just not the kind of person I look up to."

"Why is that?"

"He's a bit too flashy for my taste. Don't get me wrong, he's a great hero and deserves all the praise that he's earned. But it's just not my cup of tea."

"It's rather interesting that someone who's grown up under All Might's influence has that view. He _is_ the world renowned "Symbol of Peace" after all."

"Well...that title only means so much at the end of the day."

"Would care to explain?"

"It's r-really not my place to say." Midoriya sputtered a bit.

"Midoriya-kun, you have permission to speak freely. I'm actually very intrigued in what you have to say. Oh, where are my manners? Would you like a cup of tea?" The man offered as he pulled out a second cup from behind the desk.

Now that he had the boy right where he wanted him, the next step was to make him as comfortable as possible. Most people would've offered him a cup right out the gate, but he intentionally held off on doing so until this moment.

"Sure, sir." The boy agreed while he watched the principal pour him a fresh cup and hand it to him. He wasn't an expert on different types of tea, but this particular brand was rather soothing on the tongue.

"So, back to your earlier comment."

"Oh...right." The boy nodded before setting the cup down on the table. "In my opinion sir, the idea of the "Symbol of Peace" was kind of flawed from the beginning."

"How so?"

"I get that it's useful to help keep crime down and to act as a deterrent, but it's not feasible for the long term. All Might may be strong, but at the end of the day he's still just a man. And despite what people may think, he won't be around forever. Once he retires, I doubt that there will be anyone who can fill the hole that he'll leave behind."

"And what do you think we should do when that particular day finally arrives?"

The boy was silent for a couple of seconds before giving his answer. "I'd say it's best to get a jump on things sooner rather than later. Start preparing now for when he's finally done. There are tons of heroes out there, so it doesn't make sense to put all of our eggs in one basket. I'm not an expert on architecture, but even I know that you can't support a house on one pillar."

"You seem to have thought about this quite a bit."

"N-not really." The boy blushed slightly. "It's just something that a person I know said to me once and it made a lot of sense."

"Understandable." The unidentified mammal folded his arms. "I am curious though, if you don't look up to All Might. Then what hero do you want to be like? Everyone has someone that they try to emulate, even myself."

"I guess that would be Blizzard, sir. She's definitely the kind of hero that I want be like if I ever go pro."

"Makes sense, you two have similar quirks and she's doesn't have very much of a public presence. The only time she's ever seen on television is when she's on duty. The same was true for Tornado before her disappearance."

"Yeah."

"Actually, this brings to my next topic that I wanted to discuss."

"Which is?"

"Like I said earlier, I took the liberty to review some of your training footage. And I couldn't help but get the feeling that you're not pushing yourself as much as other students."

All Midoriya could do was give an awkward laugh at the accusation. Granted, it wasn't like he was wrong in saying so. "I wouldn't say that exactly, sir. I always give it my all during class, it just so happens that my quirk is really convenient for most of what we've done here so far."

"I can agree with that. With your power, most battles would be over before they started. And given the fact that you can fly, very few students at this school present a real challenge for you. As of right now, I'd say that only a few third year students could really give you a run for your money. Nejire Hadou is actually the first to come to mind. You two spend your lunches together on the roof if I'm not mistaken."

Midoriya failed to hide the look a surprise that palstered itself onto his face at the mammal's words.

"Midoriya-kun, you should know that I have eyes and ears all over this school. It's not against the rules to spend your time up there. But I do find it odd that you chose to eat there and not with your classmates." Nezu said with a curious look.

"I-I'm just not good with big crowds, sir. It's never really been my thing."

"And there's nothing wrong with that." The man answered before standing up from his seat and walking towards the open window. "Well Midoriya-kun, unfortunately that is all the time that we have for today. You have to get back to your studies after all. But I think I finally have a good idea on what kind of student you are."

"Oh, okay?" The boy stood up out of his own seat.

"I look forward to seeing how you progress during your time here at U.A.. I have high hopes for you and I'm sure you'll live up to my expectations."

"Thank you, Nezu-san." Midoriya politely bowed.

"Have a wonderful rest of your day."

"Yes, sir." He bowed once again before turning on his heels and walking out of the room. As soon as the large wooden doors closed behind him, Tsukauchi and Yagi popped out from behind the cracked open bathroom door near the back of the room.

"So Tsukauchi-kun, did you get all of that?" Nezu turned to the two men.

"Yes, for what it's worth the boy is a rather honest kid." The detective answered. "Most of everything he said was true."

"Most?" Yagi gave him a concerned look.

"There were two instances where he lied. The first was when he said that he wasn't really in a position to judge others on their goals for becoming a hero. The second...was when he said that he's never been a fan of All Might. That one practically broke by internal polygraph the moment the words came out of his mouth."

"Interesting." Nezu rubbed a paw to his chin. "Coupling that with his thoughts concerning All Might, this paints quite an interesting picture. He _was_ a fan of yours at some point Toshinori-kun, but now he's not."

"I wonder what made him change his mind." Yagi said to no one in particular. Did he do something to make the boy lose faith in him? Or was it something else?

"Well, his views are rather unique."

'_Unique yes, but not unreasonable.'_ The mammal thought to himself. "In any case, I didn't feel the need to push the conversation any further than that point. Nothing else he said raised any major suspicions." At least none that he was comfortable with pointing out at the moment without some more information.

"I agree." Tsukauchi added. "For now we should just stick with our original plan and keep our distance. We were already pushing it with that interview of yours."

"Indeed, for the time being let's not do anything else so rash. Now then, Toshinori-kun, you have a class to instruct if I'm not mistaken."

"Yes sir." Yagi looked at his watch, seeing that he only had about thirty minutes before the first year's heroics lesson. "I'll be on my way."

"Me too, I'll keep you up to date if something else comes up in my investigation."

With that, the two men made their exits, leaving Nezu alone with his thoughts. After a brief moment of contemplation, the man walked over to his desk and sat himself down in his chair.

'_Quite an interesting person indeed.'_

* * *

"So Midoriya, what the hell did the principal want to talk to you about?" Awase asked as the boys of 1-B got changed into their hero costumes.

"Nothing really, he just wanted to pick my brain and ask me a few questions." Midoriya answered.

"Man, we totally thought that you were about to get expelled or something." Tsuburaba joked.

"Yeah...it was pretty nerve-wracking. There's something scary about him."

"Seriously, I've heard that he's one of the most intelligent beings on the planet. That's definitely something to be freaked out about."

"Still though, what did you guys actually talk about?" Tetsutetsu inquired.

"He just wanted to know why I'm trying to become a hero." The boy said, he didn't really feel the need to fill the others in the rest of their conversation. Mainly because something about it made him uneasy.

"That's it?" A few boys said in unison.

"Yeah."

"Oh…"

"Alright guys, we better hurry up and get out there before we all get in trouble." Honenuki proposed, causing the group of boys to make their way outside.

* * *

"I am here...to teach!" The voice of All Might boomed after finally arriving in the viewing room, striking a dramatic and heroic pose. Despite being well into their studies, it was still pretty crazy to most of the students that the number one hero was one of their teachers. "Today all of you will be engaging in a bit of friendly competition."

"What do you mean, sensei?" Ojiro asked.

"You students will be participating in a three-man game of "capture the flag"." The man began explaining.

"The rules are pretty simple. All of you will form up into thirteen teams of three and begin at various ends of the training ground. Your objective is to secure the black flag located on the tallest building and bring it back to your starting point. Combat is authorized as long as you don't use excessive force on one another, and there is no time limit." Midnight explained.

"It's kinda like in the Sports Festival."

"So it's just one big ass free-for-all." Awase commented.

"That is correct young Awase."

"So what are the teams?"

"That young Kirishima is the fun part. You will all have the luxury of choosing your own teams. You'll have ten minutes to form your groups. After that, you'll head out and make your way to your starting points."

A silence fell over the room as everyone let those words sink in. In an exercise like this, speed and mobility were the key. Getting into a fight with some of the other teams was practically unavoidable, and with all the chaos going around it would be pretty hard to hang on to the flag for too long. Factoring all of this in, it would be smart to choose a partner who was both powerful and hard to get a hold of. And there was one person in particular who had a guaranteed advantage over the competition….

"Midoriya!" Practically all of the 1-B students shouted in unison as they directed their attention towards the boy in the green jacket.

'_Oh no…'_ A sense of dread washed over the boy's body as they all crowded around him. He expected something like this to happen, but now he had a bunch of unwanted attention on him.

"C'mon dude, be my partner!"

"Fuck that, obviously he should team up with me!"

"Obviously partnering up with me would be the better choice, Midoriya-kun!" Monoma said in haughty tone.

In the back of the gaggle, Tokage and Kendou were watching their classmates plead their cases as to why Midoriya should join their team. It was plainly obvious that he was going to be the one that everyone would go after. But considering the fact that his quirk was perfect for this, it was only logical.

"You aren't gonna try and ask Midoriya-kun to join you? I thought you'd be the first one to try and call dibs on him." The orange haired teen quirked an eyebrow at her class vice-rep.

"You kidding? This is the perfect chance for me to finally go up against him since our battle trial. I've got a few new moves that I want to test out and he'd be the perfect person to practice them on." The green haired girl smirked.

"Seriously?"

"Of course!"

"Well in that case, why don't we partner up? We have a pretty good balance of offense and defense. The only thing that we're lacking is speed."

"Sounds good to me." Tokage's grin widened. "And I know just the person to make up for that."

Back with Midoriya and company, the gaggle showed no signs of letting up. The green haired boy was about to try and make a break for it before a hand placed itself on his right shoulder.

"We're partners. Our quirks are a good match and I'm the only one that can keep up with you and watch your back in the air." Yanagi stoically stated in a way that didn't leave any room for discussion whatsoever.

"O-okay." The boy agreed for some strange reason. Although he couldn't argue with the girl's logic, it made way too much sense.

"What? How the hell is that fair?!" Kamakiri pointed an accusatory finger at the girl.

"Who cares? As long as they pick me then we have nothing to worry about."

Seeing as they were running short on time, the grey haired girl decided to put an end to this nonsense. "I'm thinking of a number between one and one hundred. The person who guesses right or the closest to it will be on our team."

Everyone looked around at one another before nodding their heads and shouting out their guess.

"Seventeen!" Shoda shouted.

"Forty-five!" Monoma followed.

"Seventy-five!" Kuroiro added.

Instead of speaking, Kodai held up a two in her right hand and a zero in her left, signifying the number twenty.

"Sixty-nine!"

"Dude, really?" Honenuki glared at Tsuburaba.

"Sorry…." The '_solid air'_ user quickly apologized for his inappropriate outburst.

"Kodai-chan got it right."

"Hmm." The emotionless black haired girl nodded.

"What? How?"

"It's my student number."

"That...makes sense."

"Alright, everyone else go form your own groups. We need to strategize." Yanagi ordered the rest of students. No one had the heart to protest since they lost fair and square. So they quickly split up into smaller groups and began forming their own teams.

"Thank you, Yanagi-san."

"It's no problem." The girl replied. "But we need to hurry and form a strategy."

"Hmm." Kodai agreed.

"So what do you think we should do?"

"I think a simple strategy would be our best bet. Seeing as we'll have the air advantage, all we need to do is make sure that we're the first ones at the flag. We can pretty much avoid everyone else after that."

"I agree." The boy replied. "But seeing as the two of us are on the same team, we're gonna have a pretty big target on our backs. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the others tried to take us out before that."

"So, what do you think we should do about that?"

Midoriya was silent for a moment as he went over his options. Based on the teams that he could see forming, Bakugou, Todoroki and Tokage's groups were going to be their immediate threats. But everyone in the class had some type of advantage in this scenario. However, it didn't take long before a strategy popped into his head.

"I think I have an idea. And Kodai-san, you're going to be the key factor in it." He then turned towards the emotionless teen.

"Hmm?"

* * *

Not too long after that, the students found themselves outside of their designated starting points waiting for the horn to sound. Most of the teams were pretty balanced in terms of strength and ability. But there were a few obvious groups that were full of heavy hitters.

Team 1: Bakugou, Sero, Kirishima

Team 2: Shiozaki, Fukidashi, Shishida

Team 3: Satou, Kamakiri, Ojiro

Team 4: Yaoyorozu, Ashido, Shoji

Team 5: Todoroki, Honenuki, Tetsutetsu

Team 6: Awase, Rin, Bondo

Team 7: Monoma, Tsuburaba, Jiro

Team 8: Midoriya, Yanagi, Kodai

Team 9: Komori, Kuroiro, Hagakure

Team 10: Tokage, Kendou, Tsunotori

Team 11: Mineta, Kaminari, Koda

Team 12: Kaibara, Aoyama, Shoda

Team 13: Uraraka, Asui, Tokoyami

"Some pretty interesting groups in that line up." Midnight said as she looked over the teams. "Who do you think is going to win it?"

"The obvious favorite is Team 8. They have the advantage in mobility since two of their members can fly. And Midoriya can carry Kodai, so she won't be an issue." Kan voiced his opinion.

"I'm having a hard time disagreeing. But I'll be rooting for Team 10."

"Careful Kayama, your bias is showing."

"Don't sleep on Setsuna. The girl is a lot craftier than you think."

"There's no point in placing bets." Aizawa interjected from his sleeping bag.

"I'm going to go against the grain and say that Team 5 will emerge victorious. Young Honenuki and young Tetsutetsu have a pretty good defense against young Todoroki's ice. No doubt they formed their group with that in mind." All Might added.

"He's still not using his fire, huh?" Midnight looked to Aizawa.

"No, I've already talked to him about it but he won't budge. Whatever his reason for holding back is, it seems to be a serious one for him."

"I wonder why that is?"

"In any case, I'm looking forward to how this one turns out."

* * *

"**Begin!"** All Might's voice boomed over the loudspeakers.

Once they got the word, practically every team shot out of their respective starting points and sprinted towards the objective. The building was only eight hundred meters away from them so it wasn't too long of a journey. But considering the fact that every other team was an obstacle, they knew they were going to have to be careful.

"Alright, let's go." Midoriya looked to his partners. Without missing a beat, Kodai hopped onto the boy's back and the two telekinesis users took to the sky and slowly began their advance. Everyone was probably expecting them to rush to the flag, but they had other ideas.

Team 8's strategy was rather out of character for all of them, but that didn't make it any less brilliant. To put it simply, they were going to let the other groups fight each other and wear themselves out. And then take the flag for themselves once one of the other teams were on their way back with it.

However, they didn't even get a chance to scope out the competition before their first obstacle of the day reared its head. A few hundred meters away from them, a loud explosion caught their attention. The group turned heads to see Bakugou barreling towards them with a full head of steam. With Kirishima and Sero right on his tail.

"Dammit Bakugou, we're supposed to be heading towards the flag!" Sero cursed the blonde haired boy, only to get no response.

The '_explosion'_ quirk user only had one thing on his mind, at that was taking out Midoriya once and for all. The stupid exercise could wait. And it wasn't like he couldn't handle the rest of these extras on his own. Right now, the only thing that mattered to him was settling the score with this green haired loser.

"Wow, you were right Midoriya-kun. He was going to try and come after us." Yangi said.

"I knew this was going to happen. But I didn't think that he'd try and do this right out the gate." The boy sighed. "Kodai-san."

"Hmm." The girl nodded before reaching into one of her pouches and handing something to him.

"Too bad his quirk completely lacks subtlety."

"It doesn't really matter." Midoriya gave her a neutral look under his helmet as he activated his quirk. No one outside of 1-B had ever seen the maximum range of his telekinesis before. So there was no reason for Bakugou to be expecting what happened next.

About one hundred and fifty meters away from his target, Bakugou's body suddenly stopped mid-air. The ashen blonde teen was surprisingly thrown off by this, but didn't have a chance to make his next move before being pulled in the same direction that he was going. Barely a couple of seconds later, the boy was only a few meters away from Team 8.

"Let me go, you damn loser!"

"No…" Midoriya flatly stated as he turned his attention towards Kirishima and Sero. The boy then used his quirk to lift the both of them into the air. And just like he did during their earlier exercise, bunched the three together with Bakugou in the middle.

"You just had to pick a fight with the one person that you can't beat, huh Bakugou?" Sero said in a very annoyed tone.

"Shut your damn mouth before I blast you, plain-face!" He growled at his partner.

"Well...we certainly don't want that happening." Yanagi interjected as she held her arm out and used her own quirk. The group watched as Bakugou's arms suddenly moved and his hands clasped together against his will.

"What the hell?!"

"Wait, you can manipulate a person's body parts individually!" Midoriya gawked at the girl.

"Not exactly, I manipulated his gauntlets. Not his actual limbs."

"That's amazing! Doing something like that takes a ton a precision and fine control. I don't think I can even do that! Manipulating clothing is insane!"

"I learned it during my internship. It's easier to do when the person is wearing something heavy like Bakugou-san here." The girl replied.

"Yanagi-san, you have to teach me-"

"Hmm." Kodai waved her hand in front of the boy's face before he could start his signature mumbling.

"Oh, right." Midoriya blushed before getting back on track and turning his gaze back to his opponents. Seeing as they already wasted enough time on this matter, the boy held out his hand and revealed a tiny metal rod no bigger than his palm.

"Kodai-san, do it."

"Hmm." The '_size'_ quirk user compiled as she brought her hands together. Out of nowhere, the metal rod expanded in size to about three and a half meters in length. Using his new found knowledge that he gained from Katsuragi, the boy proceeded to wrap the object around the bodies of the three 1-A students. It was tight enough to keep them in place, but not so much so that it would cause any injury.

"When did you learn how to do that?" Now it was Yanagi's turn to ask the questions.

"I learned it from Fubuki-san."

"She taught you a lot of st-"

"You think this will be enough to stop me, Deku!" Bakugou angrily barked at the boy. Not only did these extras have the audacity to do humiliate him like this. But they had the nerve to hold a conversation while doing it.

Deciding that he was now tired of looking at the boy, and getting yelled at, Midoriya gently placed the group down on the ground below them. Much to the blonde haired boy's chagrin. With that small annoyance officially dealt with, Team 8 continued their approach towards the target to continue scouting out the competition. Leaving a very angry Bakugou to think about this entire situation.

'_Damn that fucking nerd! This isn't over, Deku!'_

* * *

Back with the rest of the students, things were quickly heating up. After a brief scuffle with Team 13, Tokage and her group managed to be the first ones to make it to the flag. With the girl levitating pieces of her body across the sky and Tsunotori transporting Kendou on her horns, the trio of girls were able to avoid practically everyone else up until this point.

"Alright, let's hurry and get the hell out of here." Tokage quickly grabbed the flag with one of her hands. She still had quite a bit left in the tank. But since Midoriya's team was nowhere in sight, she preferred getting this exercise done with sooner rather than later.

"Yeah!" Her teammates nodded before reassuming their earlier formation and leaving the building.

The girl's didn't even make it a hundred meters away from their destination before something flew pass their faces and into the sky. All three of them looked down to see Yaoyorozu and her team standing next to a giant cannon. The raven haired teen was in the process of producing another projectile and Shoji appeared to be playing lookout for anyone else nearby.

"You were right, Setsuna. I guess some of the other teams were waiting down below for another group to grab the flag for them." Kendou said.

"Doesn't matter, they only had one shot to get us and they missed it." Tokage shrugged her free-floating shoulders. "Let's hurry and get out of here."

The other two girls agreed and quickly left the area before Yaoyorozu could get another shot off. From what they could tell, they were pretty much by themselves. The only indicator that someone was close to them was a small wall of ice about two hundred meters on their right.

About halfway through their journey, they made sure to keep an eye out for any other teams. Most of the other groups were stuck on the ground so they didn't need to worry about them. The only problem was that Team 8 was nowhere in sight.

"I wonder where Midoriya-kun and Yanagi-chan are?" The orange haired girl wondered.

"They probably got attacked as soon as we started the race. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the other teams wanted to cut down on the competition early."

"Makes sense."

As soon as the words came out of Tsunotori's mouth, the group had their advance cut off by some giant screws that were launched into the air from down below. By sheer luck, all of them managed to avoid getting hit. But that was the least of their worries.

"I guess we spoke too soon." Tokage clicked her teeth while gazing down below them. Sure enough, Team 8 was standing in the middle of the road about eighty meters in front of them. The group didn't have enough time to think before the second wave of enlarged objects was sent flying.

Once again, they were able to dodge the attack without getting hit. But now they were in the middle of a fight that they were hoping to avoid.

"Here!" Tokage shoved the flag into Kendou's hand. "Take that thing and keep your distance. I'll take care of them."

"You sure?!"

"Trust me, I got this." She flashed the orange haired teen a confident smirk before splitting herself up some more and hurling her body towards her opponents.

Down on the ground, Midoriya wasted no time in flying up into the air to meet the girl head on. In all honesty, Tokage is one of the people in his class that he preferred not to fight if he could help it. But with her in the way, getting to that flag wasn't going to be as easy as he hoped.

Just before the boy could use his quirk to grab a hold of her head, Tokage quickly spread herself over a larger area and used her pieces to create a sphere his body. In the blink of an eye, the boy was locked in on all sides and barely had time to react before the girl started her attack.

"Don't take this personal, Izuku. But my need to get my payback for the battle trial!" The girl's head taunted him as she activated her move. "**Scale Storm!"**

All of a sudden, all twenty pieces of the girl's body began violently rotating around him. As he looked up and down, he noticed that he was truly surrounded on all sides. This was his first time seeing the girl perform such a move. And if it wasn't for the fact that he was caught in the middle of it, he would've been impressed. Just before he could snap himself out of his thoughts, one of Tokage's fists nailed him on the right side of his back. Out of instinct, he immediately went to guard that side. But not even a second later he was struck again in the back of his head.

'_She's going after my blind spots!'_

'_Damn, that helmet is harder than it looks.'_ Tokage gritted her teeth. She knew enough about the boy's quirk to know that it was limited to his field of vision and that his head was his weak spot.

Seeing as he had no hope of tackling this move head on, Midoriya instead chose to launch himself further in the sky as fast as he could.

"You're not getting away from me that easy!" Tokage shouted as she gave chase. Leading to a veritable game of cat and mouse in the sky.

While that was going on, Yanagi decided to make her move. The '_poltergeist'_ user mounted her hover disc and made a beeline straight for Kendou and Tsunotori. From what she knew of the American's girl's abilities, she wasn't nearly as mobile as either herself and Midoriya. And she was limited to only two horns at a time. Both of which were being occupied.

The girl got about thirty meters away from her target before Tsunotori and Kendou managed to dodge it. However, it proved to be useless since they were now in range of her quirk.

"**Heist!"** The girl said before ripping the flag from Kendou's enlarged hand and grabbing it herself. With their objective now complete, it was time to enact part two of their strategy. "Midoriya-kun!" The girl said in slightly higher tone of voice than what they were used to hearing from her. Luckily for her, her green haired teammate got the message.

"Kodai-san, do it!"

"Hmm." The other stoic teenager of the group nodded as she pulled out a fist full of miscellaneous objects from her pouch and tossed them on the ground before activating her own quirk.

With the stage now set, Midoriya and Yanagi went barreling towards the girl's direction with their opponents hot on their heels. What happened next was definitely a sight to behold.

At the last possible second, Yanagi suddenly changed directions and made a hard left turn. While at the same time, Kodai made a mad dash for a nearby alleyway. Unfortunately for Team 10, they failed to recognize this in time and were exactly where Midoriya wanted them.

The green haired boy himself quickly changed directions and made a hard stop above the pile of enlarged screws, nuts and washers. And with one quick breath, activated his new super move. "**Hellstorm!"**

In the blink of an eye, Tokage, Kendou and Tsunotori were caught in the middle of what can only be described as a tornado of house appliances that left them practically no room to move.

"Fuck!" Tokage shouted while doing her best to avoid a few stray nuts and bolts. However, her partners weren't so lucky. In the middle of the chaos, Tsunotori got flanked by a washer and had the wind completely knocked out of her. Forcing her and Kendou to the ground with a couple of not-so-subtle groans.

"Pony, Itsuka!"

"Midoriya-kun, let's go." Yanagi told her partner.

"Right!" The boy agreed. Without a moment's hesitation, Midoriya lifted Kodai off of the ground and the three made their exit. Leaving Team 10 behind to try and recover after their loss.

"You're gonna pay for that!" The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user angrily waved her fist in the air.

With the flag now in their possession and no one in sight, the only thing that Team 8 had left to do was to secure their victory.

"That was one of Tornado's moves, wasn't it?" Yanagi looked to the boy.

"Yeah." He gave her a slight grin. "Fubuki-san showed me how to do it. It's not perfected yet, but I have a decent handle on it."

"It seems useful."

"It is, I'm pretty sure that you of all people would have no trouble learning how to do it." Was his honest reply. With Yanagi's level of control over her quirk, he wouldn't be surprised if she mastered it in no time.

"I probably couldn't do it on that level, though." She shot back.

With their starting point only about a hundred meters away from them, Team 10 relaxed a bit by descending closer to the ground and slowed down to what could be considered "cruising speed". However, this proved to be a costly mistake since they weren't prepared for what happened next.

"Jiro-san, now!" The voice of Monoma shouted from right in front of them.

"Wha-"

Out of nowhere, the airborne trio were hit with an absolutely ear splitting noise from the opposite direction. It was not only loud, but the level of vibration that they experienced was enough to rattle their bones. They tried to cover their ears to shield themselves from the disturbance, but it proved to be pointless. Barley a couple of seconds passed before everything went dark and three of them hit the ground.

"Oh man, I can't believe that worked." Tsuburaba sighed in relief from his spot next to Monoma.

"We took a pretty big gamble, but it paid off. Your idea to hang back actually paid off, Monoma." Jiro added.

"I knew that Midoriya-kun and his team were probably going to be the ones to claim victory. So it was only logical to wait for them to return and ambush them when their guard was down." The '_copy'_ quirk use haughtily replied with a satisfied smile.

"Pat yourself on the back later dude, let's just grab that flag and get back to our starting point before someone else shows up."

"Good idea." The '_earphone jack'_ user agreed.

As much as Monoma would've loved to copy Midoriya's quirk, he decided to save it for later. Without missing a beat, Team 7 secured the object from Yanagi's hand and sprinted towards their destination. Earning themselves a come from behind victory.

* * *

After wrapping up their exercise, and a few much needed visits to Recovery Girl's office, the hero course students were released for the day. Midoriya was by no means a sore loser, and he gave Team 7 a well deserved "congratulations" for catching him and his team off guard after he finally woke up. However, the boy did make a mental note to keep track of Jiro in the event that the two were ever pitted against each other in the near future.

"Nice job out there today." Tokage said to Midoriya after finally catching up to him just outside of the main entrance.

"Yeah, you too." He replied with a bit of a grin.

"Yeah…I almost had you there. But then you went and busted out that new move of yours. It totally caught me off guard."

"You too, using your quirk like that is really useful for a fight."

"So, did you learn that from Blizzard?" She asked him.

"Mhmm." He nodded. "It's called, "Hellstorm". I'm nowhere close to mastering it yet, but I have a pretty good handle on it so far."

"That's funny, I call my new move "Scale Storm". Great minds think alike, huh?"

"I guess so…."

"So, about our date…" Tokage quickly changed subjects.

"Oh…yeah…" Midoriya blushed slightly, finally remembering that he agreed to go on a date with her. Something that was still a bit hard to wrap his head around.

"I think we should hold off until after our exams."

"Huh?"

"Oh man, what's with that look?" Tokage laughed while holding herself up on his shoulder. "But seriously, we need to focus on studying for now. You know what they say, work hard and play later."

"Yeah, that makes sense." He agreed. The girl was right, the end of semester exams were too important not to focus on. Even so, he still had a couple of questions about their eventual outing. "So what are we going to be doing?"

"I have a few things in mind, but I haven't decided yet. I want to make sure that it's something fun that we can both enjoy."

"Okay."

"Unless you already have something in mind~?" She leaned in a bit closer and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"N-no, sorry." The now red faced teen stammered.

Seeing as she now had him right where she wanted, the girl decided to tease him a bit more by walking her fingers up his chest. Partly because she knew it would get him flustered, but mainly because she needed an excuse to feel him up a bit.

"Just make sure you wear something nice. Not saying that you should go all out or anything, but you should definitely throw on something that showcases those guns there mister muscles. Y'know, you should really show off some more. The girls would be all over you."

"I'm n-not really into that kind of thing."

"Yeah, I know." She giggled before rubbing a hand in his hair. "That just means less competition for me. Man, I really miss your old hair. It was so much more fun to play with."

"I...don't really know how to respond to that." He blushed even further. How this girl was so comfortable doing something like this out in public was a complete mystery to him.

"Yeah, that was kind of the point." Tokage then linked their arms together and started leading him out of the school. "I know you're not heading over to the orphanage today, but we can still walk to the station together."

"Yeah, that's fine." He gave her an honest smile.

Eventually, the green haired duo left the school and found themselves about halfway to the train station. Thankfully, no one else was around. So it was pretty much just the two of them. Seeing as now was as good a time as any, Tokage decided to strike up a conversation.

"Hey, Izuku?" She looked at him with a slightly worried expression.

"Yeah."

"Does all my teasing make you uncomfortable?"

The boy held his tongue for a few quick moments before giving her a response. Of course the girl's antics were a bit too over the top at times, but they weren't exactly unbearable. He learned pretty quickly that Tokage was just the type of person who enjoys getting a rise out of someone. But it was obvious that she made an effort to keep things under control.

The boy was no stranger to getting teased. But compared to what he had gone through for most of his life, it was a far cry away from truly making him uncomfortable. Flustered and slightly embarrassed, yes. But not really anything more than that.

"To be honest…not too much. But you do get kind of crazy at times."

"You know you can just tell me to stop whenever you want, right?"

"Yeah, but I know you don't mean anything bad by it."

"True, but the last thing I want is to overstep my boundaries."

"It's fine, Tokage-san."

"Setsuna." The girl shot back.

"Huh?"

"Call me, Setsuna. You let me call you by your first name so it's only fair if you call me by mine. You can drop the honorifics too."

"I c-couldn-"

"You can, and you will. I think we're good enough friends by this point for you to stop being so formal with me."

There was that word again, friends. No matter how many times he heard it, it was still weird for someone to openly address him as such. Naturally because of his former quirklessness, no one ever wanted to have anything to do with him. He was still on the fence about whether or not the rest of his classmates would treat him the same if they found that out about him. But he had been working on not being so critical of people.

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"And it's not like you haven't already told me a couple of secrets about yourself. Come to think of it, I haven't really told you any of my secrets yet have I?" The girl tapped a finger to her chin with a thoughtful expression.

"You don't have to do something like that."

"Nope!" The girl smiled at him. "Just to be fair, I'm going to tell you one of my secrets so we can be even."

"You don't-"

"My big secret is…is that I was actually _really_ nervous about asking you out."

…

…

…

"Really?" The boy tilted his head in confusion. He doesn't really know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't that.

"Oh definitely!" The girl chuckled. "I was like sixty percent sure that you were going to shoot me down."

"Seriously?" He said. "But you were so calm about it."

"On the outside, sure. But on the inside I was super anxious about it."

"Wow."

"So there, now we both know at least one secret about each other. So we're even!"

"Tokage-san…"

Silence was the only response that the boy received. "Tokage-san?"

"I already told you to call me Setsuna, didn't I? I won't be responding to anything else from now on."

"But-"

The girl stopped in her tracks and turned to face him before placing her hands on his cheeks and moving his jaw. "Oh come on, it's not that hard. Just say it with me…Set-su-na."

"S-Setsuna…" The boy repeated after her with redness on his cheeks.

***Ba-Dump!***

Hearing him say her name immediately sent a wave of warmth all over the girl's body. That, along with a slight tightness in her chest. It wasn't a bad feeling, but it was definitely weird.

"Better" Tokage smiled to hide her own blush.

It was only after she finally looked up did the girl realize that the two were already in front of the station. Seeing as this was a pretty good stopping point for their conversation, the girl gave him a tight hug around his body before making her way over to her terminal. Leaving Midoriya to think about the last few seconds of their interaction.

"See you later, cutie! Try not to dream about my beautiful face too much!"

"B-bye..." Midoriya said in a low tone and a polite wave. Still extremely embarrassed about calling someone, let alone a girl, by her first name. Once she was out of sight, all the boy could do was shake his head and do what he could to bring down his rapidly beating pulse.

Tokage was definitely a strange girl. One who was way too forward for his liking at times. But there was something about her that just couldn't help but make him feel all fuzzy inside. Deciding to push those thoughts aside for now, Midoriya walked over to his terminal to make the short journey back home. It was only after he boarded his train that he noticed the awkward smile plastered over his freckled face.

'_Man…what the hell?'_

* * *

**Author's Notes: Not really a whole lot to say about this chapter. I will admit that the conversation with Nezu was way longer than I originally planned. But I think that it came out rather well. Next chapter is going to be the study session with our crew. So there won't be any action. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a review/comment.**


	21. Study Time!

The last week before exams practically flew by before Saturday finally came around. Midoriya had just finished up his morning training regiment and was moments away from stepping out of the apartment.

"So how long are you going to be over there?" Inko asked her son. Who was actually going over to a friend's house for the first time in essentially forever. Even though he mentioned a few times that he wasn't exactly friends with everyone that was going to be there, this was still a pretty big deal to her.

"Just for the afternoon. I won't be gone too long." He answered.

"Okay, just make sure that you call me if you plan on staying out too late."

"Alright." He simply nodded.

"And you should probably take a jacket or something. It's supposed to rain later."

The boy was about to respond, but decided to just hold his tongue and do as the woman asked. He quickly walked over to his room and grabbed the white hoodie out of his closet before throwing it over his body. He didn't have a rain jacket or poncho, so this would have to suffice.

"Alright, I'll be back later."

"Izuku…" Inko nervously called out to him just as he stepped out.

"Yeah?" He asked in a slightly impatient tone. He needed to get going or else he was going to miss his train.

"Have...have fun, sweetie."

"I'll try." He simply said before closing the door behind him.

Although she would never admit out loud. Every time he walked out that door, a small bit of Inko feared that he would never come back. Ever since the incident that happened last year, she did her best to not worry about the boy every time he left her sight. She knew that being a "helicopter parent" wasn't good for either of them. But considering all they had been through recently, it was hard not to do that.

With one last sigh, the woman released the tension in her shoulders and quickly got to work preparing her lunch for the day. Silently hoping that her son would make it back to her in one piece.

* * *

The early afternoon train ride over to Saitama Prefecture was pretty smooth for Midoriya. Since it was the weekend, there were far less crowds this time of day as compared to during the week.

While scrolling through his phone and letting out a short yawn, Midoriya continued strolling down the street into the residential neighborhood that the address was leading him into. It was a pretty normal suburban community with decent sized houses that pretty much all looked the same. Nothing you wouldn't see anywhere else in Japan.

This was his first time going over to a classmate's house since his early childhood and the boy couldn't help but wonder just how today was going to go. Not only was he intentionally going to a girl's house. But he would be spending a fair amount of time with his classmates. Not too long ago, he would've thought that something like this would never happen. Especially to him.

In no time, he finally arrived at his destination. The boy quickly swallowed his nervousness and gave three not-too-forceful knocks on the door. He waited for about fifteen seconds before the sound of footsteps could be heard from the other side. And sure enough, it opened up to reveal Tokage.

The girl was dressed in a rather form fitting blue tank-top and black gym shorts. Her usually free-flowing hair was tied up into a ponytail that certainly didn't help the fact that Midoriya was trying not to blush at the sight of a girl.

'_Wow...she looks really pretty like that.'_

"Izuku, you're…right on time. Wow, talk about punctuality." The girl smiled and gave a chuckle after looking at her phone.

"I apologize. If you want, I can come by late-"

"It's fine dude, come on in! You're the first one here." She waved off, motioning him to come inside.

"Thank you." He bowed politely.

Once he was inside, the boy quickly removed his shoes and handed the girl the snacks that he promised he would bring. It was just a simple container filled with assorted fruits and a bag of bagels. The girl gladly accepted and went over to the kitchen to set them down on the table.

While she was doing that, Midoriya took the time to inspect the residence. It was a rather nicely decorated home, nothing too out of the ordinary. For some reason, he expected the Tokage household to be a bit more vibrant than what he saw. Which was understandable considering the girl's personality.

As he made his way over to the living room, the boy noticed the wide array of family photos that lined the walls and shelves. On them were various pictures of Tokage herself along with Kayama and other members of her family including who he assumed to be her sister and father.

However, there was one photo that stood out to him the most. Above the television was the image of a woman with straight, moss green hair and matching eyes dressed in a firefighter's uniform. '_That must be her mom.'_ He thought to himself before Tokage made her presence known.

"Everyone should be here in a bit. Metalhead overslept, but he's supposed to meet Awase at the train station so they should be here soon." The girl said while flopping down onto the couch and patting the open spot next to her.

"Oh, cool." He answered while taking the seat.

"So there's really no point in getting started without the others. You wanna just chill out in the meantime?" She asked.

"S-sure."

The two sat in relatively awkward silence for a few seconds before Midoriya decided to try and break the ice.

"So…your house is really nice." He told her, looking around the living room once again.

"Thanks." The girl smiled at him. "We moved here a few years ago since it's closer to where my dad works."

"That's nice. You sure have a lot of photos up." He said, taking another gander around the room. "Midnight-sensei is in a lot of them too."

"Yeah, you're right about that." She laughed before pointing at the older picture of herself along with the woman in question accompanied by her father and older sister. It was a "family photo" of the quartet at an amusement park. "She's pretty much been with us for as long as I can remember. Aunt Nemuri used to babysit me and my sister when we were younger."

Suddenly a thought popped into the boy's head. Social etiquette would've normally dictated that he not ask this particular question. But his curiosity ended up getting the better of him at that moment. "So uh...are Midnight-sensei and your dad…"

"Together?" She finished it for him. "No, unfortunately. But not for lack of trying."

"Huh?"

"Me and my sister have been trying to get those two together for a while now."

"Really?"

"Oh, hell yeah!"

* * *

_~4 Years Ago~_

"_Aunt Nemu, we need to talk." Nanao told the woman with a rather serious expression._

_The R-Rated heroine gave the green haired teen a curious look as she shifted in her seat on the sofa. It was a nice Friday afternoon in the Tokage household and the three women were patiently waiting for the resident patriarch to make his return from work._

"_What's wrong, sweetie?" Kayama asked._

"_Look, there's no easy way to ask this...so I'm just going to come out with it."_

"_I don't-"_

"_Do you like dad? Like...romantically?" The younger Tokage sister cut her off in an impatient tone._

_In a brief moment of uncharacteristic behavior from the black haired woman, Kayama slightly blushed at such a question. "W-whatever do you mean?"_

"_Do you like dad? It's a pretty simple question."_

"_We won't be mad if you say yes. We just really want to know." Nanao continued._

"_Girls please. This is hardly the time for something like this."_

"_C'mon man! You guys have been friends forever and you practically live here when you're not working. It just makes way too much sense."_

"_I uh…" Kayama stumbled for a moment before recomposing herself. Deciding to take a page out of her own book, she quickly decided to turn the tables on them. "Oh my, don't tell me that you two are jealous of little ol' me? Does the mere thought of the two of us spending so much time together really rub you the wrong way~?"_

"_No…" Both girls flatly stated._

"_Oh…" The woman blinked. _

"_Mhmmm."_

"_Where is this all coming from?"_

"_It's blatantly obvious if you ask me." Setsuna shrugged._

_A brief moment of silence passed among the three as Kayama let out a bit of a sigh. All she wanted was to have a nice dinner after a long day of work, and now she was being mildly interrogated by an eleven and fifteen year old. "Girls listen, I...am absolutely in love with your father. And I could really use your help trying to make this happen!"_

"_Huh?" The girls blinked in surprise. To be honest, they were expecting the woman to deny it._

"_I've been trying for years to get that man to fall for me, but nothing is working. I've pulled out every trick I can think of to get him to fold but it's been fruitless. I mean, I'm the "R-Rated" hero for god's sake, this shouldn't be happening! The only thing I haven't tried is just pinning him to his bed and suck-"_

"_Wahh!" Nanao screamed as she covered her sister's ears. This was way too graphic for her to be hearing._

"_Think about it." The black haired woman stood on her feet and pleaded. "Wouldn't it just be lovely to have me as a stepmom? Think of how jealous people would be if you told them that the Midnight was living under the same roof as you. Oh, the boys would be all over you girls!"_

"_What do you see in him anyway? No offense, but dad isn't exactly the most interesting person in the world." Setsuna inquired._

"_Aside from him being quite the looker, the way he cares for the two of you is just so adorable. And...the way he rejects my advances so casually is so...tantalizing. He's like the forbidden fruit. An obstacle I must overcome!" She pumped her fist in the air with a look of determination and no doubt some less than appropriate thoughts._

_Both girls looked at each other for a moment before giving on another an approving nod. _

"_Alright."_

"_Alright, what?"_

"_We'll help you."_

"_You mean it?!" Kayama smiled at her two nieces._

"_Yeah, dad's love life has been pretty non-existent for as long as we can remember and we think getting with you would be good for him. Plus there are worse things in the world than having you as a stepmom."_

"_Aww, come here you little rascals!" The woman pulled the two of them in for a long and caring hug. "We start tonight. Operation: "Seduce Urie" is officially underway!"_

"_We are not sticking with that name." Nanao deadpanned._

"_This'll be fun!" Setsuna cheered._

* * *

"Wow…" Was all Midoriya could say after hearing the girl's story.

"Yeah." Tokage let out an amused sigh. "She's absolutely head over heels for him. Unfortunately, dad's a bit dense when it comes to these kinds of things. But she is determined to make it happen."

"It's hard to imagine Midnight-sensei of all people having trouble when it comes to dating."

"I know right!" Tokage began laughing at the thought of it. "So how's your day been going so far?"

"P-pretty good. The only thing I did was my morning training before I got here."

"Ooh, sounds interesting. What kind of training do you do?" She asked, genuinely curious as to what kind of regiment the boy had for himself.

"Just a morning run and some practice with my quirk. I don't really do too much on the weekends."

"I bet you weight lift too, huh?" She smiled while very obviously checking him out. The boy was dressed in a white hoodie and a pair of khaki shorts that showed off just the right amount of his admittedly toned thighs. Barely a second passed before a thought passed the girl's mind. "Hmm."

"Y-yeah?"

"Nothing. It's just that you're wearing the same hoodie from back when we first met."

"Oh, I g-guess I am." Midoriya blushed slightly.

Seeing as they were alone, there was no better time in Tokage's opinion than to ask a question that has been on her mind for a while. "So, I know this is probably a sensitive topic for you. But what were doing all the way out here back then?"

"It's...complicated." He answered.

Tokage looked at him with a curious expression for a moment before giving a shrug. "Yeah, I figured."

"So...what have you been up to?" He quickly changed topics.

"I actually woke up not too long ago. I just finished having breakfast."

"Oh, cool."

"Yea-"

The girl was cut off when another knock on the door caught their attention. Without missing a beat, Tokage stood up from her seat and made her way over to the small hallway leading into the living room. Once she opened the door, she was met with the sight of the ever emotionless face of Yanagi holding a small container of homemade cookies in her hands.

"Ghosty!"

"Hello." The grey haired girl greeted her back. "Sorry I'm late, my train got delayed."

"Don't worry about it." Tokage waved off. "Izuku's the only one here so far."

"Oh." Yanagi slightly raised her eyebrow after hearing this. The girl was quickly ushered inside and planted herself in the chair to the right of her other green haired classmate.

"You're here early." She looked at the boy.

"I actually just got here."

"Oh…"

"What?"

"Nothing, I just thought that it made sense that you'd get here before everyone else."

"Why is that?"

"Well, you and Tokage-chan like each other so it only makes sense."

Almost immediately, Midoriya's face erupted into a furious shade of red at what the girl was implying and quickly tried to clear up any misunderstandings. "I-I-I uh...w-we…"

"Sorry." The girl apologized. "I guess I misread the situation."

"It's fine."

"So, are you doing alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." The boy answered.

"Just making sure." She simply stated. Ever since that whole situation during their training session, the girl made it a point to check up on her friend every now and then just to make sure that he was doing okay. She was still on the fence about keeping silent about his secret. But seeing as there was no reason for her to blow the whistle on the matter, she kept her word.

* * *

It didn't take long for the rest of the study group to finally show up. With everyone now present and accounted for, the group secured their study materials and circled around each other in the living room. Tokage taking point in getting everything started.

"Alright, now that everyone's here. What are we going to get started on first?" The green haired girl looked around at her classmates.

"Well, what's everyone's worst subject?" Honenuki followed up.

"Math." Yanagi admitted.

"English." Kendou and Shiozaki both stated.

"Japanese history." Tsunotori said.

"Everything…." Tetsutetsu and Awase both whined in defeated tones.

"What about you guys?" Everyone's attention was now directed towards Midoriya, Tokage and Honenuki. All three of them gave out a set of shrugs at the question.

"I'm not really having trouble in any subject. I have _'A's'_ in everything." Tokage smirked with her hands tucked behind her head.

"Same." The other two echoed.

Tetsutetsu and Awase shot the trio a couple of envious stares that lasted for a full ten seconds. Midoriya could only respond with an awkward chuckle while Tokage just flat out started cackling in front of them.

"How about we start off with English and then work our way up from there?" Kendou suggested. "It's supposed to be the shortest exam out of all of them. So we can spend the least amount of time on it."

"Sounds good to me." Awase said. More than happy to just get the ball rolling.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me." Tokage said before looking over to Tsunotori. "Pony, I've meaning to ask you. How'd you end up at U.A. anyway?"

All of the attention in the room was now focused on the horned girl was fishing through her backpack for her textbook. "I'm a member of new exchange program at my school. It has something concerning foreign relations with international hero community."

"What school did come from?" Shiozaki inquired.

"The Xavier Academy."

"Wait, really?!" Midoriya almost shouted in disbelief. Much like U.A., the Xavier Academy was considered the top hero school in the U.S.. A number of famous and internationally recognized pro heroes graduated from there.

"Yeah!" The horned girl smiled brightly.

"That's pretty cool." Said Tetsutetsu who was starting to make his through one of the pizzas.

"So how'd you end up getting picked for that?"

"After my first year, many of us was selected to do the exchange program because of our grades and performance. Back home, high school takes four years long instead of three. I had option of coming here or to Russia."

"Why here?" Tokage asked.

"My father's parents are Japanese and I desired to see what it was like here."

"Well that explains why you have a Japanese last name." Kendou pointed out.

"Man, I've always wanted to visit America. I bet it's so different from Japan." Awase said to no one in particular.

"Their crime rate is pretty high though, from what I've read." Honenuki followed up.

"Many people mention that, but it's not as bad as you think." The horned teen retorted.

"Huh?"

"America is twenty-six times larger than Japan and has two and a half times total population. It's very big place, so of course there's going to be more crime. We can't have heroes like All Might who can just show up anywhere." The girl explained.

"I never thought of it like that." Kendou thought out loud.

"Still, it'd be pretty nice to go over there at least once. There's a ton of famous cities that I'd like to visit." Tokage said.

"Just stay away from Florida." Tsunotori joked.

"Why is that?"

"That's where all the crazy people live. Most wild stories in America come from there. My aunt was hero there for a while after moving and she told me the people in that state are crazy."

"You're aunt's a hero?" Asked Tetsutetsu.

"Yeah, her hero name is Cow Lady."

"I think I've heard of her before." Midoriya pointed out.

"I apologize, but I believe we should hurry and start studying. We have a lot of information to cover." Shiozaki politely interjected.

"Yeah, Ibara's right." Tokage agreed. "Everyone grab your English books and turn to lesson two. I'm pretty sure Present Mic said that the exam is going to be covering everything from there all the way to lesson seventeen. Most of what we'll have to deal with is reading comprehension and writing."

The group wasted no time in getting down to business with their cramming session. Out the corner of his eye, Midoriya saw Yanagi use her '_poltergeists'_ to lift both her textbook and workbook into air before also using her quirk on her pen to start writing down some words.

"Yanagi-san, are you...are you writing with your quirk?" He asked in a very curious tone.

"Yeah…" The girl stoically answered as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "You don't do that?"

"No." He replied.

"Really? I do this all the time, it makes studying a lot easier."

"Man, your guy's quirks are so convenient." Awase groaned in slight jealousy.

Deciding to see if he could do it, Midoriya activated his '_telekinesis'_ and tried to follow the girl's example. As he wielded both objects in front of his face, the boy struggled a bit as he attempted to write down a few simple words in his workbook. However, this small task proved to be a lot more difficult than what he expected. After a few seconds of struggling, he took a look and his handiwork. He tried writing the English word for "wind". But what he got was some barely legible scribble.

"Wow, that's way harder than it looks." The boy gave a defeated sigh.

"It was a decent attempt." The girl answered.

"Yeah well, you're better at this kind of stuff than I am. I don't have nearly the same level of control as you do."

"It's weird how you two have the same quirk but at the same time they're so different." Tokage pointed out while placing a hand on Midoriya's shoulder.

"Yeah, it's kind of like Tetsutetsu-kun and Kirishima-kun. Same principal, but it's totally different." Honenuki laughed.

"Yeah well, Metalhead can also eat metal. Back in middle school he would always snack on iron shavings in the middle of class." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user said in an amused tone.

"What? They taste good, and it helps out with my quirk." The '_steel'_ quirk user laughed.

Midoriya made a mental note to at some point ask the silver haired boy about how his metal consumption tied in with his ability. Maybe the hardness of his still was relevant to his diet?

* * *

Three hours, three subjects, two pizzas, one container of cookies, seven bagels and one shredded notebook (Thanks to Tetsutetsu) later, the students found themselves hard at work on their studies. Honenuki and Tokage took the time to breakdown everything in a way that was easily digestible. And everyone else filled in the gaps whenever possible. Everything was going smoothly for the group of students and everyone was making good progress.

Midoriya found himself enjoying this meeting of the minds quite a bit. It was his first time ever hanging out with a group of people before. At least one that didn't make it a point to use him as a practice dummy for their quirks. And he could feel the nervousness fade away as time went on.

Eventually, the group decided to take a break to give their brains some time to cool off. Tetsutetsu was the first to run to the kitchen and start bringing out the rest of the food that everyone brought over to the living room. And a few minutes later, the students began digging in and talking about whatever came to mind. The conversation was in full swing until the sound of the front door opening drew their attention.

Everyone turned their heads and were met with the sight of a slim, average sized man with short blue hair and black eyes wearing a pair of blue jeans along with a black sweater. Judging by the fact that his face was on several photos plastered across the house, the students recognized this man to be Tokage's father.

The man took a few steps into the hallway before pausing and shifting his gaze over to see his daughter and eight other kids around her age with notebooks, laptops and papers scattered across the living room floor.

"Oh that's right, I forgot you were having some friends over to study. How are you all doing?" Urie Tokage spoke with a polite wave. Slightly revealing a set of sharp teeth that let everyone know where exactly Tokage got that particular trait from. The one thing they did notice however, was that the man was missing the last two fingers on his left hand.

"Dad, what are you doing here?" The younger Tokage asked. She wasn't expecting him to be home until later that night.

"I finished up early today and took off. Since I now have the free time, I planned on actually making dinner for once. Nemuri's going to be here later too." He replied.

"Oh, cool."

"So how's the studying going?" He then looked around the room to rest of the girl's friends.

"Good." All of them echoed simultaneously.

"Excellent! Well, I'll let you kids get back to it. Setsuna, if you need me I'll be in my office."

"Alright." She gave him a quick thumbs up.

Urie began making his way over to the staircase before pausing his feet and turning back around the face them. "Oh yeah, which one of you is Izuku Midoriya?"

"M-me, s-sir." Midoriya nervously answered while pointing to himself. Time seemed to freeze as the man took a moment to look him up and down. The boy had no idea what could've been going through his head. But he subconsciously felt the need to straighten out his posture.

"Good luck, you're going to need it with _her_. Just try not to let Setsuna become a bad influence on you."

"Huh?"

"Dad!" The girl almost shrieked as a very uncharacteristic blush quickly formed on her face. Why her father decided to say that all of a sudden was a mystery to her. However, she had a sneaking suspicion that Kayama might have something to do with it.

"Anyways...have fun." He said before quickly retreating up the stairs.

The students were quiet for a brief moment to let that interaction sink in. For most of them, that was pretty much their first time ever seeing the girl get anywhere close to embarrassed before. Usually she was the one trying to get a rise out of others. So seeing her on the receiving end of a joke was a rarity.

"Setsuna, forgive me for asking. But what happened to your father's hand?" Shiozaki looked at the girl and asked in a somewhat quiet voice. Just in case he could still hear them.

"He lost his fingers when he was a kid." The girl explained. "Like me, he and my sister can detach and control their limbs at will. Except they can't regenerate what they lose. I'm the only one that can regrow lost limbs since I inherited my mom's regeneration ability."

"How unfortunate." The vine haired teen said in a somber tone.

"I guess you lucked out then." Yanagi was the next to speak up. "I never really considered how dangerous it is to use your quirk. I can imagine training would go a lot differently for you if you ran the risk of losing body parts."

"Yeah, you're right about that. But I try not to rely on that part of my quirk if I can help it. I might be able to regrow limbs and heal small wounds, but I'm not really looking to see how far my regeneration goes anytime soon."

"Why not?" Awase asked.

"It's too dangerous." The girl answered.

Midoriya could definitely agree with Tokage's reasoning. She may have the ability to regenerate to a certain degree. But with quirks like that, it would be hard for someone to safely test the upper limits of their power. Seeing as doing so would mean that you would need to intentionally injure yourself. Probably in various ways.

"Alright, I think that's long enough of a break!" Tokage clapped her hands together. "Next up is math. Something I know for a fact that Metalhead is close to failing."

"Dude!"

* * *

Eventually, all of the studying came to an end and everyone started making their way home before it got too late. Midoriya was the last one to leave, seeing as the boy offered to help stay and clean up. Much to Tokage's delight, seeing as having an extra pair of hands would make things go by faster.

"Thanks for helping me clean up." Tokage said to Midoriya while scrubbing the last of the dishes.

"It's no problem."

"Did you stick around just so you could get some alone with me~." The girl wiggled her eyebrows in a very suggestive manner. Causing him to blush at her implication.

"N-no, I just thought you might need some help."

"Aww, you're so sweet." She teased him a bit further before changing topics. "So...about our date."

"W-What about it?" He asked, genuinely curious to see where the girl was going with this.

"There's a festival going on in Musutafu the day after the exams. I think it'd be a pretty nice place for us to go. Don't you?"

Midoriya looked up at the ceiling for a moment to think about her proposal. He had never been to a festival before, so he had no idea what to expect. But from everything he knew about them, they were pretty fun and there was a lot of stuff to do.

"Sounds like fun." He said with an honest grin.

"Y'know, you should smile more." Tokage suggested, earning a confused look from the '_telekinesis'_ user. "You look way cuter when you smile, especially with those freckles."

"T-thanks." The boy's blush intensified.

"Don't- Aww shit!" She cursed after dropping one of the cups that she was washing onto the ground. Without a second thought, the girl bent down at the waist to retrieve the item. And Midoriya suddenly found his eyes wandering over to Tokage's rather...fit backside.

'_She looks really good in those running shorts.'_ He said to himself before immediately shaking those thoughts out of his head and trying to cool himself off. It was rude to ogle a girl without her knowing. Or at all.

With the dishes washed and the rest of the cleaning now done, Midoriya decided that now was a good time to head back home. Even though it was still the weekend, he didn't want his mom to worry about him...any more than what she usually does when he went out. And on top of that, he didn't want to overstay his welcome seeing as the girl was about to have company over in a little while.

"Thanks again for coming today. I really appreciate it."

"Thank you for having me." He gave a polite bow.

"I'll see you later, Izuku." Tokage gave him one last hug before letting him depart. As she watched him make his way down the street, the girl failed to notice the presence of the last remaining person in the house leaning up against a nearby wall.

"So...that's the boy that Nemuri keeps telling me about?" Urie said in an amused tone as he casually took another sip of his tea.

"What the-" The girl quickly turned around to meet his gaze.

"He seems like a nice young man. I approve."

"How long have you been standing there?!"

"Long enough." He answered nonchalantly.

"Oh…"

"Well, I'm glad that you at least have better taste in boys than your sister does. I don't even want to think about what kind guys Nanao is talking to while she's away at school. Do me a favor and try not to end up like her."

"Noted." The girl shot back.

"Anyways, dinner will be ready in a couple of hours. I'm making yakitori and fried rice. Is that okay with you?"

"Sounds great!" The girl flashed him a toothy smirk. It had been a few days since the two of them were able to sit down and eat together, so she was really looking forward to it. And the fact that he was going to make her favorite dish was just icing on the cake.

"Good." Was all the man said before turning around and heading over to the kitchen.

That night, the two of them along with Kayama sat down for a very lovely "family dinner" and got to catch up on what was going on in their lives. Overall, this was probably one of the best days that she's had in a while.

* * *

After three grueling days of testing, the students were finally done with the written portion of their exams. In all, everyone was feeling pretty good about themselves. Somehow, all of them managed to pass. Albeit with a few close calls. And as expected, Tokage, Monoma, Shishida, Midoriya and Honenuki had the top scores overall. With that particular hurdle now out of the way, all that was left was for them to do was to make it through the practical portion and they would be home free.

"Congratulations on making it through your written exams without any failures. But as you all know, that was only half of the story. Today, all of you will be taking part in the practical portion. I expect you all to do your best." Kan said to the students as they all stood in front of the main training center.

"Uh…so why are all of the teachers here?" Shoda asked what everyone else seemed to be thinking.

"No doubt a few of you did a bit of scouting and information gathering before today to see what you're going to be up against, right?"

"We're fighting those robots from the entrance exam, right?" Kamakiri sated with a wide grin. The '_razor sharp' _user was almost chomping at the bit to cut loose and blow off some steam.

"Wrong!"

"Huh?" Everyone blinked in confusion.

"Actually…" Principal Nezu interjected after appearing from out of nowhere. "For various reasons, this year's test will be completely different, my young pupils!"

"Wait, what?"

"There will be a new focus on the exams for you all. You will be focusing on both teamwork and combat with actual people. So what does that mean for you? You students will be working in pairs. And your opponents will be members of our esteemed faculty! Isn't that fabulous?!"

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Come again?"

"何!" Fukidashi's thought bubble read.

"Additionally, your partners and opponents have already been chosen. They were determined based on various factors that I don't have the time to get into." Kan explained with a slight grin on his face. "The matchups are as follows…"

Kendou and Tetsutetsu vs Cementoss

Tokage and Kaibara vs Ectoplasm

Tsuburaba and Kuroiro vs Midnight

Monoma and Honenuki vs Powerloader

Kamakiri and Shishida vs Snipe

Shiozaki and Fukidashi vs Thirteen

Tsunotori and Kodai vs Present Mic

Shoda and Awase vs Vlad King

Bondo and Komori vs Hound Dog

"And finally, Midoriya and Yanagi will be paired up together." Kan finally announced.

Midoriya let out a small sigh of relief after hearing that. Yanagi was the perfect partner to have for him. They had similar quirks and now that the girl had her support item, they had a pretty major advantage when it came to this exercise. However, one thing definitely didn't seem right about this situation. Practically all of the teachers minus Nezu himself had already been announced.

"Wait." The green haired teen raised his hand and looked towards the principal. "Does this mean that we're going to go up against you, sir?"

"Oh no, we have something _special_ planned for you two in particular." The unidentified mammal told him.

"What do you mean?" Yanagi inquired.

"For your exam, you two will be facing-"

"Me!" A very familiar female voice said from above.

Everyone upturned their gazes and were absolutely shocked by what they saw. And Midoriya in particular felt a chill go down his spine. Green hair, green dress, white coat. Yup, there was absolutely no denying who this person was.

'_Oh no…'_

"I'm sure that many of you know who she is already. But please, allow me to introduce you to the current thirtieth ranked hero and a graduate of this very institution. Our special instructor for the day, Blizzard!" Nezu announced with a smile on his face.

"Oh my god, it's really her!" Tetsutetsu almost shouted.

"_Wow, her and Midoriya do look a lot alike."_ Kaibara whispered to Bondo and Kodai.

'_Holy boobs!'_ Tsuburaba's eyes nearly popped out of his head before shaking those thoughts away.

"F-Fubuki-san!" Midoriya gawked at the woman who would serve as his opponent for the final exam. Out of everyone in the world that he did not want to go up against, she was certainly at the top of his list. Every advantage that he thought he had going into this suddenly became irrelevant. The boy took a second to glance over at his partner. And judging by the look on her face, Yanagi must've been thinking the same thing as he was.

Katsuragi quickly lowered herself back down to the ground and planted herself right in front of the two telekinetic students. The woman crossed her arms and shot both of them a confident smirk. "Hello Midoriya-kun, it's nice to see that you're doing well. I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to this. I hope you make sure that this was worth the trip out here."

Both Midoriya and Yanagi could practically feel the intimidating aura radiating off the green haired heroine's body. If the teacher's goal was to match them up against the worst opponent possible, then they definitely succeeded. As the boy locked eyes with his mentor, only one thought came to his mind.

'_Oh…fuck….'_


	22. High Flying Showdown!

_~A few days ago.~_

"...and those are all the matchups I have for my class." Aizawa stated as he placed a stack of papers back into a manila folder.

Currently the faculty of U.A.'s first year hero course were discussing the lineup for their upcoming new end of semester exam. Due to the changing of the times, they had all decided to switch things up for this year.

A short smile came from the fury face of Nezu as he gave the nocturnal hero an approving nod. "Yes, I agree with your reasoning. I'll be looking forward to that particular match due to the parties that will be involved."

"It's going to be a complete madhouse if you ask me." Snipe commented while twirling his empty pistol on his finger.

"Now, let us move on to 1-B and their lineup."

"Yes, sir." Said Kan. "I pretty much have everything sorted out. However, there's one problem that I keep running into that I was hoping you all could assist me with."

"What is it?" Kayama asked.

"Midoriya and Yanagi." The blood themed hero replied. "Simply put, they pose the biggest obstacle. Because of how the exam is set up, they'll be able to pass with almost no issues that I can see. Now that Yanagi has the ability to fly with that new support item of hers they both present a major problem for whatever opponent they'll be put up against."

"Just restrict them to staying on the ground. That's the most rational explanation." Aizawa said.

"I thought about that, but it wouldn't really be fair to them. None of the other students will have any restrictions on their quirks during their testing."

"I can agree with that." Maijima nodded.

"This is an issue. Whether or not they're teamed up together, none of us really have a chance of even coming close to them if they stay airborne the entire time."

The room was silent for a moment as the members of the faculty racked their brains for a possible solution. Like Kan had previously stated, it wouldn't really be fair to either student if they were to place an unnecessary restriction on their abilities. The purpose of the exam was to push the students to their limits and have them work around their shortcomings. And they very well couldn't do that if either of them were instructed to hold back.

"Why don't we just have All Might fight them?" Ectoplasm suggested.

"Unfortunately we don't know how long _my_ match will take. And the time limit on my hero form is now a little over one hour at the most. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it." Yagi answered in a slightly defeated tone.

All of a sudden, Nezu clapped his paws together and looked around the room. An action that told everyone present that he had cooked up something interesting. "I believe I may have a solution to your problem Kan-kun. After all, this exam will present us with quite the opportunity!"

"Would you care to explain, sir?"

"I suggest that we place both of these students on the same team and have them go up against someone who can match them in terms of ability."

"I'm not following." Kayama gave him a confused look.

"I recently had a chat with Midoriya-kun concerning his quirk. Why the boy told me himself that he hasn't been able to push himself as much as the other students due to his abilities."

Thirteen was the next to speak. "He's got a point. That boy's quirk is incredibly convenient for the curriculum that we currently have in place for the first years."

"So what do you have in mind?"

Before the unidentified mammal gave his explanation he reached over the desk and started typing into the keypad on his phone. "If the purpose of the new exam is to pit students against someone with whom they would have a disadvantage, why don't we do a bit of outsourcing for these two? In fact, there is a former graduate of this very institution that would be the perfect person to ruffle their feathers a bit."

Once he pressed the call button on the phone, the staff patiently waited as the dial tone cycled a couple of times before someone on the other side of the line answered. "_Blizzard Hero Agency, this is Lily speaking. How may we be of service to you?"_

"Hello ma'am, this is principal Nezu of U.A., is Fubuki Katsuragi available to speak? We have a proposition for her that I believe she would be very interested in."

* * *

Following the announcement of the exams and their rules, the students of 1-B along with the teachers were ushered into the building and headed over to the main viewing room. There they were greeted with the majority of class 1-A. On top of that there were even a few staff members present that Tokage had never seen before. From what they had been told a few minutes ago, since the teacher's needed some time to rest up Midoriya and Yanagi's match was going to be first.

"Hello everyone." Kendou politely greeted the other hero course students.

"Greetings, Kendou-san." Yaoyorozu spoke.

"You guys already finished your exams?" Tokage asked.

"Yes." The raven haired teen nodded.

"How'd everyone do?"

"Most of passed, minus a few. We actually just finished watching the last match."

"Who was fighting?"

"It was Kirishima-kun, Todoroki-san and Bakugou-san against All Might-sensei."

"Seriously?" A few 1-B students echoed in surprise.

"They had to fight All Might?"

"Yes." The class rep of 1-Aconfirmed. Yaoyorozu then went on to explain how because their class was now short one member, the final match needed to be adjusted to account for the extra person. Not that it really mattered in the end.

"How'd they get so lucky?!" Tetsutetsu looked around for an answer.

"Lucky? More like unfortunate." Jiro said.

"How'd they do?"

"To put it simply...it was a complete and utter disaster. They got destroyed."

"That bad, huh?" Tokage commented. Going up against the number one hero was already a tall order. And considering the three students that were involved, she had a pretty good idea of how that particular match might've gone down.

"Hey, at least we finally got to see Todoroki use his fire. Even though it was pointless." Kaminari shrugged in a sad tone.

"Are you all about to start your exams?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"Yeah, Midoriya-kun and Yanagi-chan are the first ones up." Kendou replied.

"Who are they up against?"

"Blizzard."

More than a few heads turned around after hearing that. Blizzard was here? That was certainly a surprise. Although she was pretty popular, it was a rare sight to see the woman outside of her job.

"Yeah...pretty crazy huh?"

"I don't think I've ever seen Blizzard fight before." One of the 1-A students said. "She's mainly works as a rescue hero, right?"

"Yeah." Honenuki nodded before turning to Tokage. "Tokage-chan, you teamed up with Midoriya-kun during your internship, right? Is she any good in a fight?"

"Definitely."

The green haired girl pondered for a moment as she thought back to their internships. Based on what she had seen, Blizzard was incredibly powerful. And she was also very adept with her quirk. It was hard to believe that she was known as the weaker half of "Psychic Sisters".

"How do Midoriya-san and Yanagi-san stack up?" Asked the tailed student, Ojiro.

"I'm going to put it like this. She's like a combination of the two of them, but better."

"Damn."

"Yo, did they already start?!" A female voice asked from the nearby entrance.

Everyone quickly turned their attention to the back of the room and were met with sight of two people that Tokage immediately recognized. One was a muscular woman with black hair and purple eyes. The other was a slim woman wearing a black pantsuit along with a hair accessory in the shape of white tiger-lily.

"Ember?"

"Oh, hey Lizardy! How ya' been?" Ozehana gave the girl a quick wave.

"You know them?" Tetsutetsu asked his friend.

"Mhmm." The girl nodded. "This is Ember and Lily, they both work over at Blizzard's agency. Ember's a fire rescue specialist and Lily is her assistant."

"Cool."

"So what are you guys doing here?"

"The boss let us tag along so we could watch the match. Since Fubuki-san's a rescue specialist, we rarely ever get the chance to see her in an actual fight. And there was no way that we were going to miss out on this. Plus, I wanted to see if Midoriya-kun's gotten any stronger." The '_flame control'_ user happily explained.

"Makes sense."

"This should prove to be quite an interesting affair." Lily interjected. "Fubuki-san hasn't had the chance to battle anyone anywhere near her level since Tatsumaki-san's disappearance. And to my understanding, Midoriya-san is quite strong."

"This reminds me of one of those battle mangas where the teacher and the student have their big showdown. No wait, it's totally like the little brother that has to prove himself to his big sister!" Ozehana gushed.

"See! I'm not the only one that thinks they're related!" Honenuki was quick to mention. Earning a few laughs from his classmates.

"In any case, I'm sure we're in for one hell of a match." Midnight said as she joined the conversation. "Given the quirks of those three, no doubt there will be a lot going on. Let's just hope that the rest of us can keep up."

* * *

"**Izuku Midoriya and Reiko Yanagi, battle trial commence!"** The voice of the announcer rang through a partially decimated Training Ground Beta.

As soon as they were given the word, the two telekinetic students took off from the main gate and immediately ducked behind a nearby building. Seeing as they were the first ones up, they didn't have as much time to prepare as they would've liked. And considering who their opponent was, this just put them at an even greater disadvantage.

"So what are our chances of being able to completely avoid her?" Yanagi asked her partner.

"Slim." Midoriya answered.

For the two of them, their current strategy was rather simple. Because of all the buildings that lined the artificial environment, it provided them with enough cover to move around relatively undetected. So for right now, staying low was their best option. Even though it would've saved them a lot of time, moving through the air was too risky since it made the both of them sitting ducks.

"I doubt that Blizzard is going to come looking for us in this big of an area. I bet that she's waiting near the exit gate."

"I agree." The boy replied. "At the very least, we can use this time to scout out the area and see what she might be planning. Hopefully we can get close to the gate before we run into her."

With that, the two students spent the next few minutes moving through the area while avoiding any of the main roads. They may have had a significant amount of time to make it through this exam, but every last second counted in a scenario like this. Along the way, they took the time to go over their plan of attack in case they ran into their opponent.

* * *

"I don't get it. Why don't the two of them just fly straight to the gate?" Said a confused Tetsutetsu.

"Use your brain, dude. If they do that then they'll be wide open for an attack." Tokage looked to the silver haired boy. "Plus, they're probably looking to save energy."

At the moment, the two of them along with Kendou, Shiozaki, Fukidashi and Kaibara were all huddled together in one group.

"That does make a lot of sense. Considering who they're up against, they can't get reckless. Moving stealthily is their best option." Kendou agreed.

* * *

Roughly ten minutes passed before Midoriya and Yanagi finally came within three hundred meters of their destination. Up until now, they had seen no sign of Blizzard anywhere and the two couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy about that. After one last bound through a nearby alley way, the duo ducked behind another building that gave them a clear view of the exit. Midoriya then poked his head around the corner and his heart nearly dropped into his stomach at what he saw.

The exit was in clear view of where they were standing, however that was the least of their worries. Across the way, the boy could see a massive amount of debris conveniently placed in front of the gate. Random pipes, boulders and other miscellaneous objects were completely blocking their escape. There was even a small car sitting atop the stack.

"Damn." The boy quietly clicked his teeth.

"What do you see?" Yanagi asked in a slightly worried expression.

"Fubuki-san blocked the gate with a bunch of debris. I'm pretty sure that I can move most of the junk, but it might take some time."

"We should be in range of your quirk. You can start moving it from here."

"You're right. But we still don't know where Fubuki-san is, plus she knows the range of my quirk. As soon as I start moving stuff around, she'll know that we're close by."

"As much as I hate taking unnecessary risks, it can't be helped. Go ahead and start clearing that stuff out of the way and I'll be your lookout."

"Got it." The boy nodded.

Midoriya poked his head around the corner once more and activated his quirk. The first object that he decided to move was the dilapidated car, seeing as it was the biggest singular piece that he could see. With a practiced ease, the boy lifted the vehicle from atop the mound and gently placed it next to a nearby bus prop across the clearing. Simply dropping it would've been easier. But the excess noise would only alert Blizzard of their presence sooner.

Now that the car was out of the way, next up were the boulders. Just as the green haired boy was about to start moving them, an unwanted guest made her appearance.

"Midoriya-kun, I'm disappointed. Didn't I already teach you how to move large clusters of debris?" Blizzard said from right above them.

"What the-"

"Where did she-"

Without any warning, both Midoriya and Yanagi were lifted off of the ground and had their bodies flung up into the air. In the blink of an eye, the two were face-to-face with their opponent.

"Where did you come from?" Said Yanagi to the green haired heroine.

"I've been tailing you for the last five minutes."

Midoriya chose not to speak. Instead, the boy quickly looked around the area to find a way out of this situation. By a sheer stroke of luck, Yanagi was in his field of vision and the boy used his quirk to detach the folded hover disc from the harness on her back and used that to attack their opponent. Thankfully, Blizzard wasn't expecting such a move and momentarily broke her focus to avoid getting hit.

Without missing a beat, Midoriya recalled the support item into his hand and then took control of his partner before she could hit the ground. The boy then grabbed her by the waist and flew off in the opposite direction.

"Sorry, I had to use your hover disc." He apologized as he handed the item back to her.

"Don't worry about it."

Before either of them could say another word, a piece of scrap metal flew right past them. Midoriya looked back only to see Blizzard right on their tail, and the woman was rapidly closing the distance. Midoriya knew that in terms of speed, he was at a disadvantage. But because of how chaotic the terrain was, they had more than enough to work with.

"It looks like we can't avoid fighting her."

"Yeah, I figured." Yanagi sighed. "So what are we going to do?"

"We're going to the ground, there is more than enough debris for us to use as ammo."

"Okay." The '_poltergeist'_ user nodded.

Just before Blizzard could close the distance, Midoriya took a hard left turn around a nearby building and disappeared from her vision. '_These compressed weights are really throwing me off.'_ The green haired heroine thought. '_I can't turn on a dime the way I want to because I have to manipulate all the excess weight.'_

Once she was able to reorient herself, Blizzard quickly rounded the building and barely managed to dodge a few small boulders that were launched at her. The woman didn't even have a chance to look back before a second wave came flying at her. However, the '_psychokinesis'_ user had no trouble in taking control of the objects herself.

"I believe these belong to you!" She smirked just before hurling the four decently sized boulders right back at her opponents. However, as soon as she looked down she noticed that Midoriya was the only one there. '_Where did-' _

***Bam!*** A force nailed her right in her back. The impact was enough to cause the heroine to fly forward a good ten meters before she could recover. Blizzard then looked back to where Yanagi was floating on her support item.

"I'm impressed that you're able to move so quickly on that board of yours, Yanagi-san. I remember Midoriya-kun telling me that he was going to teach one of his classmates _my_ "air surfing" technique." The woman smiled.

Instead of responding, Yanagi chose to put some more distance between the two of them. While at the same time, Midoriya made his move. The boy used his quirk to grab a hold of Blizzard and forced her to the earth and his partner used this opportunity to get back onto the ground. Now that she was on stable footing, Yanagi lifted up her hover disc and sent it flying towards their opponent.

Barely a second before the object could make contact, Blizzard stopped it mid-air and turned it back on it's user. Yanagi was somehow able to dodge the attack, but then the girl felt her body being pulled in the opposite direction. What happened next was the girl getting flung back to a nearby wall and having the wind knocked out of her.

"Yanagi-san!" Midoriya called out, momentarily breaking his focus. Which proved to be a costly mistake.

In the blink of an eye, Blizzard was right in front of him. The boy flew backwards to try and put some distance between them. However, the woman's speed was just too great.

Deciding to showcase a bit of her martial arts prowess, the green haired heroine began assaulting him with a flurry of punches and kicks that were supplemented by her ability to move through the air. If it wasn't for the fact he was on the receiving end of this nonsense, Midoriya would've been impressed by the woman's skill.

* * *

"Huh, I never pegged Blizzard for a scrapper." Shoda commented, very impressed by the woman's fighting ability.

"And with her quirk, it makes her that much harder to hit." Honenuki added as he watched the woman dance through the air.

Towards the front of the room, Ozehana decided to put in her two cents. "The boss makes it a point not to neglect hand-to-hand combat training back at the agency. Every Friday, all of us who aren't on patrol duty spend a few hours in the morning sparring with each other."

"That's pretty cool." Said Tsuburaba.

* * *

"Just because I'm a rescue specialist, that doesn't mean that I don't know how to brawl!" Blizzard taunted while continuing her barrage. By this point, both her and Midoriya were about twenty meters above the ground and she had no intention of letting up. If it wasn't for the fact that she had to manipulate the weights that were currently on her wrists and ankles, the woman would've been able to land a few good blows.

Back down on the ground, Yanagi was able to catch her breath and got herself back in order. The girl looked up to see her partner ducking and dodging a flurry of punches and quickly saw an opportunity. The two of them were just within range of her quirk. And seeing as the woman was preoccupied, she wouldn't be expecting an attack from behind. The grey haired teen used her '_poltergeist'_ to grab hold of Blizzard's white jacket before yanking her away from her partner.

"Ah, not bad!" The green haired heroine smirked in her direction. "Grabbing hold of my jacket was a good move. But a smart person would've attacked me while I was distracted."

'_I wanted to, but she was too close to Midoriya-kun for me to do that.'_ Yanagi grimaced while taking control of her hover disc.

"**Pilfer!"** Blizzard shouted as she took control of the object herself and sent it flying into her left hand.

"**Snatch!"** Midoriya followed up by doing the exact same thing and ripping the hover disc from grip and taking control of it himself. Now that he had a moment to catch his breath, the boy sent the object flying back to its owner and Yanagi graciously accepted her gift.

"Alright, that was a pretty good warmup. But I think it's time we got serious, don't you agree?" The woman smirked at her two opponents while ascending further up into the air.

From behind him, the sound of crinkling metal caught Midoriya's attention. The boy looked back just in time to see the nearby light pole beginning to coil in on itself and was able to avoid getting flanked on his right side. While at the same time, Yanagi dodged a similar attack directed towards her.

A part of Midoriya was hoping to conserve his energy, but that obviously wasn't going to happen considering who they were up against. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, the boy grabbed hold of Blizzard and used his quirk to send her flying away from the two of them and held her place.

"Head to the gate!" He shouted towards his partner as he took to the air.

"Right." The girl compiled before mounting her support item and joining him.

As the two students made a mad dash towards the exit, they exceeded the distance on the boy's quirk and Blizzard was able to once again take control of her body. So far the woman was less than impressed with how they were fairing. Although they were doing a good enough job so far in terms of working as a team, their reluctance to go head-to-head with her was a major problem. Based on the information that she was given prior to this exam, neither student was particularly aggressive in terms of combat and relied on their quirks to keep their opponents at bay. But such a strategy was definitely not going to work against her.

'_I guess we're going to have to do something about that.'_ The woman thought to herself before giving chase.

* * *

"I guess now we know why Blizzard was called in for this exam." Said Monoma.

"What do you mean?" Shoji inquired.

Tokage decided to be the one to fill in the gaps. "Izuku and Ghosty try to avoid fighting if they can help it. They pretty much rely on their quirks to keep everyone at a distance. But they can't do that with Blizzard since they don't have the air advantage."

"A very astute observation, Tokage-kun." Nezu smiled while sipping a cup of tea at the front of the room.

* * *

Once the two students were at the exit gate, they took a quick moment to catch their breath. They knew this exam was not going to be easy. But they were literally up against someone who could counter everything that came her way.

"So what's the plan?" Yanagi asked. "I don't want to sound pessimistic, but we're kind of in a bad spot right now."

"We obviously can't avoid fighting her. So our best option is to try and capture her. This area is littered with loose debris that either one of us could use. So our best bet right now is to try and overwhelm her." The boy replied.

"So what you're saying is that it's about to get chaotic over here."

"Unfortunately..." Midoriya sighed.

Yanagi took a moment to survey the area. All around them were piles of loose rock and metal that definitely looked to be within her weight limit. She may not have had anywhere close to the range that Midoriya and Blizzard had. But at the very least she would be able to keep their opponent at a relatively comfortable distance.

While the girl was busy thinking, Midoriya was doing much of the same. This entire clearing provided them with more than enough ammunition to keep their opponent on her toes. But that was only one part of the equation. They were going to have to create some type of opening that would not only keep the woman's mind preoccupied, but would also give them a chance to try and place the cuffs around her.

Just as the gears began turning in his head, Yanagi tapped Midoriya on the shoulder to bring him out of his thoughts. "She's here."

"Alri-" The boy's eyes practically blew open behind his helmet once he got sight of Blizzard. Not only was the woman casually making her way towards them, but her entire body was surrounded by a sphere of floating debris and metal. "Quick, hide!" He grabbed his partner by the arm and the two ducked behind the bus prop.

"We need to distract her." Yanagi stoically told him.

"You're right." He agreed before the lightbulb went off over his head. Without any warning, the boy suddenly took off his green jacket and began undoing the straps on his vest. "I have an idea."

Back with Blizzard, the woman was cautiously approaching the clearing while keeping her eyes peeled. She wasn't dumb enough to underestimate her opponents. But at the same time she was certain that the two of them were going to try and catch her off guard.

'_I'm glad that Nezu-san is letting us use the same training ground that All Might was in during the last class' exam. If he didn't take the liberty of trashing the entire place, I would've had to waste time ripping this stuff out of the ground myself.'_ The woman said to herself from inside her protective bubble. Even though it was a solid defensive measure, the downside to using this technique was that she had to maintain her focus to keep it from falling apart.

Once the green haired heroine was about one hundred meters away from the clearing, something caught her eye. From behind the prop bus, a green jacket suddenly appeared and dashed over to a nearby mound of rubble. '_Putting yourself out in the open like that, rookie mistake Midoriya-kun.'_ She smirked before sending some decently sized pieces of scrap metal his way. Of course, she wasn't going to actually try and hit him. But she was definitely going to ruffle his feathers a bit.

What Blizzard wasn't expecting however, was for Midoriya to almost effortlessly dodge every single projectile that she sent his way. '_When hell did he learn to move so well?'_ She thought before regaining her focus and firing off another wave of debris at him. Unfortunately for her, that attack only yielded a similar result. Just when Blizzard was about to open her mouth, a certain voice caught her ear.

"Fubuki-san, catch!"

"What the-" Blizzard gawked in total disbelief as the remains of the crushed car came flying directly at her. The sudden surprise was enough for her to lose focus on her protective sphere and she was able to just avoid getting hit. But Midoriya wasn't done yet. After the car passed by her body, the boy quickly boomeranged it back in the opposite direction and sent it right back at her. Now that she had enough time to think, with a simple wave of her right hand, Blizzard grabbed hold of the vehicle and sent it careening into a nearby building.

Right when she did that, Midoriya decided to make his move. The boy now dressed in nothing but his helmet and his long sleeve black t-shirt kicked himself into high gear and shot through the sky like a rocket. In response, the pro heroine descended just in time to avoid getting punched in the face. Now that she had time to recover, the woman used her '_psychokinesis'_ to take control of her opponent and bring him face-to-face with her.

'_Damn!'_ Midoriya cursed himself.

"I see...so you used your coat and vest as a diversion to catch me off guard, not bad." She smiled at him, making sure to keep herself out of his field of vision. "But word to the wise, when doing a sneak attack it's best not to shout at your opponent."

"Yeah, you're right." He said in a way that let her know that he was smirking underneath his mask.

Something in the back of the woman's mind told her to turn around. And thankfully she did or else she wouldn't have been able to see part two of their plan. From down below, Yanagi made her move and launched herself into the sky directly towards them. Apparently the girl was a fast learner due to the fact that she imitated her earlier move and surrounded her body with multiple pieces of small debris.

Once Blizzard was finally in range of her quirk, Yanagi threw every last piece of metal and rock that she was currently carrying directly at the woman. However, she wasn't expecting what happened next. Instead of trying to dodge, Blizzard moved Midoriya right in front of her and attempted to use him as a human shield.

Yanagi somehow recognized this at the very last second and was able to disperse the objects just in time to avoid hitting her partner. With both of them now caught off guard, Blizzard proceeded to throw the green haired boy into the other student and forced them down to the ground.

'_She was able to disperse all of that debris so quickly? This girl is good.'_

"I'll be taking that!" The woman then said before taking control of Yangi's hover disc and bringing it into her right hand. Blizzard then used her powers to destroy the object and separate into eight even sections.

"Dammit." Said Yanagi in a very annoyed tone. Not only was her primary means of transportation taken away from her. It was just destroyed, meaning that she was going to have to pay another visit to Hatsume before she could get a new one.

"Using human shields isn't very heroic!" Midoriya shouted up at the woman.

"Last time I checked, I was playing the role of a villain!" The woman shot back. "Besides, I'm very disappointed with the way you two have been going about this. I was hoping that this would be a more entertaining fight, but I guess I was wrong. I've decided that I'm done going easy on you two." She said before launching all eight pieces of the now dismantled hover disc at the two of them.

Midoriya didn't hesitate to grab onto Yanagi and launch himself into the air to avoid the attack. In response to this, Blizzard redirected the shards of metal to follow them.

Over the next minute or so, Midoriya did everything in his power to avoid getting hit. Yanagi would've tried to grab hold of the pieces herself, but with the way that she was positioned she couldn't get see where they were coming from. Much like her partner, her quirk was limited to her field of vision.

"Take us behind that building." The grey haired teen ordered.

"Got it." The boy replied after narrowly dodging another attack. Once they circled around the remains of the nearby structure, they took a brief second to catch their breath.

"We need to think of something."

"I know."

"You can't hide forever you two! Whenever you decide to come out, I'll be waiting!" Blizzard's voice taunted them in the distance.

Midoriya's mind was racing as he tried to come up with a plan. So far everything they had done didn't work. They may have gotten close to victory a couple of times, but Blizzard's reaction speed was just too good. Unlike the two of them, the green haired woman had experience when it came to fighting someone with a similar quirk.

'_Come on Izuku, think!'_ Midoriya repeated to himself a few times inside of his head before a strategy finally formed in his mind. It was very risky and he was going to be putting himself directly in the line of fire. But if he was able to pull it off, Yanagi would have enough time to make her move.

"Alright, I have an idea." He then looked to the grey haired teen. "It's incredibly risky, but I should be able to buy you enough time."

"What is it?"

* * *

"Man, this is getting good." Kamakiri smirked.

"I can barely keep up with all of this." Jiro folded her arms indignantly. Not only her, but a few of the other students were having difficulty following this match. Every few seconds this group would disappear outside the view of the cameras only to suddenly reappear somewhere else.

'_This ain't looking too good. She's countering everything that they throw at her.'_ Tokage thought to herself. The girl was wearing a worried expression on her face and she was having a hard time figuring out how her friends were going to get out of this. Their means of escape was cut off and Blizzard wasn't giving them a chance to try and capture her.

Suddenly, a hand placed itself on her shoulder and '_lizard tail splitter'_ user looked over to her orange haired classmate.

"They'll be fine. Midoriya-kun's strong and both of them are pretty smart." Kendou said in a reassuring tone of voice.

"Yeah...you're right." The girl smirked before turning her attention back to the monitors.

* * *

Above the clearing, Blizzard took this brief respite to catch her breath. In truth, the woman was starting to run out of energy to keep herself in the air. Under normal circumstances she would be able to keep herself airborne for a good thirty minutes before she needed to take a break. But with the added weight currently wrapped around her wrist and ankles, along with the fact she had been using her quirk non-stop, her limit was soon approaching.

Deciding to just bite the bullet and conserve some of her stamina, the green haired heroine descended back down to the earth and planted her feet on the ground. '_I really need to look into getting a pair of these weights for training.'_ She thought to herself. Barely a second later, something caught her eye.

From behind the building, Midoriya and Yanagi suddenly appeared. Just like before, the boy was flying with the girl wrapped in his arm. However, they were sticking low to the ground. Right before Blizzard was able to grab hold of the two of them with her quirk something unexpected happened. From out of nowhere, Midoriya used his powers to launch Yanagi forward directly at her. This move was more than enough to cause the woman to dodge out of the way. With part one of their plan now in place, Midoriya used that brief moment to land the girl safely on the ground about twenty-five meters behind their opponent.

A moment of silence passed as Blizzard cautiously eyed the two students on either side of her. It was plainly obvious to her that they were up to something. "So...you two finally decided to grow some spines, huh?" She taunted.

Instead of responding, Midoriya quickly undid the back latches on his helmet and removed the device from his head. Now that the thing was off, Yanagi was finally able to see just how much the boy was sweating underneath it. The girl herself was doing fine, she hadn't used her own quirk enough to elicit any of her normal headaches as of yet. But the fact that Midoriya was doing most of the heavy lifting didn't really sit well with her.

Across the way, Midoriya began floating the helmet in his right hand and wasted no time in getting the party started. Without any warning, the green haired boy launched the device directly at the woman, making sure to aim for her head. Just when Blizzard was about to take control of the object herself, it suddenly changed directions mid-air and she barely had enough time to dodge it. The '_psychokinesis'_ user glanced over to her other target and everything became clear.

'_She can move stuff on a dime like that? She's good.'_

Unfortunately for her, the woman didn't have the chance to think her way out of the situation before the helmet came flying at her once again. Each and every time the thing flew past her, the other student would take control of it and send it right back at her. '_A combination move? It'll be hard to grab that thing with the both of them slingshotting it back and forth like that. Looks like I have no choice but to go airborne again.' _

The moment Blizzard's body started rising, Midoriya seized the opportunity and took control of her, forcing onto the ground. "Yanagi-san, go!" He shouted to his classmate.

All the girl did was give a silent nod before taking the pair of cuffs from around her waist and sprinting towards Blizzard. With the way that she was positioned, the green haired heroine couldn't see the girl rapidly approaching her from behind. But she could still hear her footsteps. Refusing to be outdone by a couple of high school students, Blizzard quickly searched around them for something to use. And by a sheer stroke of luck, about fifty meters away from them was one of the crushed light poles that she used earlier.

Without delay, the woman grabbed hold of the large metal object and sent it flying directly for the group. Yanagi saw this out the corner of her eye and panicked, stopping her feet for just a second. Unfortunately for the duo, Midoriya did pretty much the same thing and broke his focus which was enough for Blizzard to make her move.

Now that she was once again in control of her body, the woman released her hold on the light pole and held her hands out towards the two students. "**Pull!"** She yelled in a commanding voice, forcing Midoriya and Yanagi's feet to leave the ground and collide into one another with a pair of loud groans. Now that the two were in position, the pro heroine launched herself up into the sky and activated her super move.

"**Hellstorm!"**

All around them, Midoriya and Yangi watched as every last piece of debris within a seventy-five meter radius of their bodies began violently rotating around them. And to make matters even worse, the circle was quickly shrinking.

"Damn!" Yanagi cursed, trying to think of a way out of this situation. With how fast the debris was moving, along with the fact that most of everything she could see was out of her weight limit, there was little that she could do.

In Midoriya's mind, the boy was able to keep himself calm enough to try and counter the woman's attack. The boy cleared his mind and stood on his two feet, while activating his quirk. '_I hope this works.'_

"**Hellstorm!"**

Not only Yanagi, but everyone in the viewing area watched as the cluster of junk suddenly changed direction. At first it was moving clockwise and closing in, but now it was violently rotating counterclockwise and spreading out.

In the air, Blizzard was certainly surprised by this. This was the first time in a while that someone had been able to counter her super move. Deciding to not be outdone by her own student, the woman doubled down on her concentration and pumped some more power into her quirk.

In response to this, Midoriya mimicked the woman's actions and forced more power into his own quirk. With all the flying and moving that he had been doing so far, the boy was getting close to his limit. But now was not the time to back down. It was blatantly obvious to him that the reason Blizzard was chosen for this exam was to push him to his limit. And if that's what he was going to have to do to win, then so be it.

On the ground next to his feet, Yanagi watched the boy put everything he had into stopping this attack. Due to Blizzard being outside of her range, along with the fact that she couldn't see her, there was pretty much nothing that the grey haired teen could do right now. '_I'm useless in this situation.'_ The girl mentally scolded herself.

'_I can't believe that he's giving me so much resistance.'_

"You're certainly powerful Midoriya-kun, I'll give you that. You two have put up a good fight, but now it's time to end this!" Blizzard shouted in a triumphant tone before executing the finishing blow. "**Hellstorm: Grand Burial!"**

The cluster of debris once again became under her control and the woman put everything she had into trapping the two students. As the entrapment rapidly closed in on them, Midoriya decided to throw all caution to the wind and poured every last bit of power he had into breaking up this attack. He never really pushed his quirk to maximum output before due to the backlash it caused. The signs of which were now starting to make themselves known.

The boy's head began throbbing and there was a slight trail of blood starting to leak from his nose. With one last push, Midoirya gave a rather dramatic warcry and a massive cloud of dust erupted in the clearing. At the same time, an invisible force pushed away everything within the immediate area and was not only to send Yanagi flying backwards. But was strong enough to push Blizzard back a few meters as well to avoid getting hit by some of the wayward debris.

Once the dust finally settled, both women looked back to where the green-haired boy was still standing and were shocked by what they saw.

* * *

"What the hell is that?!" Tetsutetsu shouted at what they were seeing on the screen.

"Whoa…" A few others mumbled.

On the screen everyone tried to make sense of what they were looking at. Not only was Midoriya somehow still standing after that move, but the boy looked...different. The top of his hair was now standing straight up into the air and it looked as though his eyes were glowing. No one was sure if it was just the way that picture was showing up on the screen or something else. But they had certainly never seen this before.

'_What the hell?'_ Tokage thought.

"Dude, did Midoriya just go super saiyan or something?"

"This is…" Lily quietly said to herself.

* * *

Back in the training area, Blizzard seemed to be stunned for some reason. The cameras just so happened to be in good enough position to capture the look of pure shock on the woman's face as she looked down at Midoriya.

'_What the hell?'_ She said to herself while trying to piece together what she was looking at. Something was not right, something was definitely not right about any of this. Her eyes had to have been playing tricks on her.

The more she took in the sight of the boy, the more confused she got. The glowing green eyes, the floating hair. All of that mixed into a figure dressed in all black. Suddenly, images of a certain green haired woman flashed across her mind and Blizzard felt a chill go down her spine.

'_Is he...is he using..."Overdrive"?'_

Down below, Midoriya couldn't exactly describe what exactly it was that he was feeling at this very moment. I was like a fog inside of his brain had just been lifted. For some reason his body felt almost weightless and the throbbing in his head had suddenly stopped. The boy looked around him to assess the damage that he had done and out the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Yanagi slowly standing back up.

"Yanagi-san, are you okay?!" The boy said in a worried tone before flying over to where she was. However, something different. Whatever the heck was going on with his quirk right now, that momentary trip over to his partner was enough cause for alarm. Not only did he get there way faster than he expected, but moving through the air was suddenly way easier than it was before.

"Midoriya-kun…" The grey haired teen looked up at her friend into his now glowing green eyes. "What did you just-"

"I don't know!" He cut her off. "We can't worry about that right now. I don't really know what just happened, but Fubuki-san's stopped attacking us." The boy then pointed back up to where the green haired heroine was gawking at them with a face of absolute bewilderment.

'_What the hell is going on?'_ The girl said to herself before regaining her composure and standing back up. "Now's our chance, we need to take her down."

"Right." He nodded with a slight grin on his face. "Here's the plan. I'll bring her down to the ground, you get ready to put the cuffs on her when you see an opening."

"Alright." The girl simply replied only moments before Midoriya launched himself into the sky towards Blizzard with an absolutely ridiculous amount of speed.

'_Did he get faster?'_

The sight of the green haired teenager flying towards her was enough for Blizzard to shake herself out of her own thoughts just in time to avoid getting hit. Whatever was going on with this boy, she still needed to focus on this fight. She had expended quite a bit of stamina with that last move so she needed to end this once and for all. As Midoriya rounded back to try and make another pass at her, the woman attempted to grab hold of him once again. But just as she was about to do that, Midoriya suddenly changed directions and flew right under her.

'_This speed, it's just like onee-chan's!'_

The woman didn't even get a chance to react before she felt her body get forcefully yanked out of the sky and was sent flying towards the ground. At the last second, Blizzard was able to stop herself from falling and managed to hold herself up a few meters above the dirt. The woman then looked up above her only to see Midoirya floating in the air above.

Another memory flashed through her head and something in Blizzard's mind clicked. Whatever was going on right now, the voice in the back of her head was telling her that it was going to be all or nothing. Blizzard then scanned the area around them and by a sheer stroke of luck, the bus prop was still in the same position as it was before. A good two hundred and fifty meters away from them.

'_That thing should be outside of his weight limit, but I can still move it.'_ She told herself as she used her power to lift the vehicle off the ground and send it towards him. On a good day, she could lift two of those by herself if she pushed it. But with how low on energy she was right now, this was the most that she could manage. She may have gotten serious, but she still had enough wherewithal not to send the thing flying at him. At most she was hoping that the sight of the thing would be enough to make him move and lose his focus.

The sound of the bus being lifted up was enough to draw Midoriya's attention. The boy then turned his head just in time to see the large vehicle approaching. Purely out of instinct, he attempted to use his quirk to stop the thing from hitting him. Midoriya simply held his hand out in front of him and much to the surprise of everyone watching, the bus stopped in its tracks.

'_Holy shit!'_ He thought in disbelief.

'_He stopped that?!'_ An equally surprised Blizzard wondered. If she remembered correctly, the boy told her that something like this was right at the edge of his weight limit. He shouldn't have been able to move it so easily.

"I'm not done yet, boy!" She then shouted before pushing the object towards him. In response, Midoriya used his own power to push back. Everyone watched as the two engaged in what could only be described as a game of reverse tug-of-war with each other. Except instead of a rope, they were trying to send a bus towards the other.

Blizzard was certainly not expecting this level of pushback from him at all. On her side, her head was starting to throb and she knew that she could only keep this up for a few more seconds at the most. Looking to find some way out of this, the woman quickly scanned the area around them in hopes of finding something to use as a weapon. But the second she averted her gaze, she lost a considerable amount of ground.

Seeing as there was only one way out of this situation, Blizzard clenched her teeth and attempted to push her own quirk to its limit. "Alright, let do thi-"

***Click!***

"What the-"

The sensation of metal wrapping around the woman's forearm was enough to break her concentration. With a loud crash, the bus fell to the ground and Blizzard looked down her at arm only to see a pair of cuffs dangling down from her limb. Utterly confused, the woman then looked to her right and was met with sight of Yanagi standing about fifteen meters away with her hands extended outward.

"**Blizzard has been captured. Team Midoriya and Yangi have passed the final!"** The voice of the announcer boomed through the area.

'_She snuck up behind me while I was focusing on Midoriya-kun?'_ Blizzard thought to herself. The woman had completely forgotten about her other opponent in all that chaos.

"I was going to do that sooner, but I was trying not to get hit by that bus." The '_poltergeist'_ user stoically admitted. In reality, that was only half-true. The girl was actually mesmerized by the display of power that she was witnessing and only just remembered the other part of their plan.

"We passed?" Midoriya said in disbelief while floating over to join them. Completely missing the peculiar look that the green haired heroine was giving him.

"Yeah..somehow." Yanagi breathed a slight sigh of relief.

"That was...a good job you two. Yeah...you took advantage of my mistake and executed rather well." Blizzard stated, still not taking her eyes off of the boy.

"Thank you, Blizzard-san." The grey haired teen bowed to the woman before turning the attention back to her friend. "Midoriya-kun, what is _that_?"

"What's what?" He tilted his head in confusion.

"Your look. Your eyes are glowing and your hair is standing up."

"What are you talking about?" He asked before making his descent back down to the ground. The moment his feet hit the dirt, the boy deactivated his quirk and started walking over towards them. "Yanagi-san, I think you- Argh!" The boy suddenly dropped to his knees and began clutching his head.

Out of nowhere, a wave of pain washed over the boy's entire body. His nose began profusely bleeding, his head was pounding and it felt like someone just hit him in the back of the skull with a hammer.

"Midoriya-kun!" Both women rushed to his aid. The two of them making it just in time to catch the boy from face planting into the dirt.

"He's out cold." Yanagi announced in a worried tone. "What just happened?"

'_Is this the backlash from using "Overdrive"? It has to be, but how can he-'_ Deciding to worry about that little detail later, the green haired heroine grabbed hold of the boy and looked to the other student. "Yanagi-san, head over to the front gate to get the medical bots, and call for Recovery Girl. He drastically overused his quirk and won't be able to move for a while."

"Yes ma'am!" Was all the girl said before sprinting towards the entrance to the training ground.

While the girl was rushing over to get help, Blizzard looked back down at the unconscious teen that she was holding in her arms. A flurry of thoughts were flying through her head right now and a bunch of things just weren't adding up. There was no doubt in her mind that Midoriya just used a technique that only her and her sister could use. And the current state that he was in was more than even further proof of that.

'_What the hell is going on, Midoriya-kun?'_

* * *

A very loud and dramatic sigh came from the mouth of Recovery Girl as the elderly woman stood up from her seat and began making her way to the exit. "I was hoping that I could get some time to rest today, but I guess that was just wishful thinking. It looks like that boy went and overdid it."

Around the room a slurry of sidebar conversations broke out amongst the students.

"Oh man, is Midoriya going to be okay?" Tsunotori said in a very worried tone.

"I hope so." Honenuki answered her.

"Dude, I don't think I've ever seen Midoriya go that hard before. That shit was crazy!" Awase blurted out.

"Yeah...it did get kind of wild towards the end, didn't it?" Ozehana chuckled, earning a slight nod from Lily.

"I knew Izuku was pretty powerful, but that was something else." Tokage said.

"Whatever it was that he just did, it certainly had Blizzard on her toes. Did you see her face earlier?" Kendou asked no one in particular.

"Let that match be a motivator to the rest of you. If you want to pass, you're gonna have to put in the same amount of effort as those two!" Kan suddenly announced.

"Yes, sir!"

"That's what I like to hear! Now that the first match is over, the rest of you better get ready. Kendou, Tetsutetsu, Tokage, Kaibara, Tsunotori and Kodai, you lot are the first group. Start making your way over to your designated training grounds and get ready!"

A few quick nods were all that the blood themed hero got in response as the aforementioned students began leaving the room to head over to the exam sites. Along with way, Tokage and Kaibara started going over their strategy again. They had done some planning before the first match, but there was nothing wrong with making sure that everything was good to go.

"You ready for this?" The '_gyrate'_ quirk user looked to his partner.

"You bet I am! We can't let Izuku and Ghosty steal all the glory now can we?" The girl beamed with confidence.

"Ectoplasm-sensei will be tough to deal with though. I know you're smart and all, but I'm a bit worried."

"Don't sweat it man, we got this in the bag."

"Alright well, I'm counting on you." He gave her a weak smile.

With that, the duo began going over their plan of attack. They were up against a tough opponent and it certainly wasn't going to be a walk in the park. But Tokage was confident that they would make it out of this with time to spare. Especially with the plan that she had cooked up. She was still worried about Midoriya, but this was not the time to think about that. Now was her chance to prove her worth and show everyone what she was made of.

'_You better watch out, sensei. Or else you won't know what hit you!'_


	23. End of Exams!

"**Setsuna Tokage and Sen Kaibara, battle trial commence!"** The voice of the announcer rang through the building.

Once they were given the word, the two students stealthily advanced through the building while making sure to avoid any open areas. Even though they were stuck inside of a large, circular building, there were still enough corners to work with. Deciding to play it safe, Tokage immediately detached one of her eyes and used it to discreetly scout a few meters ahead of them. Over the last few weeks she had been able to work on her stamina to a point where detaching only one small part of her body could barely be considered an issue anymore. But considering who their opponent was, it was best to conserve as much energy as possible.

"What do you see?" Kaibara quietly whispered to his partner.

Tokage used her free floating eye to round another and take a look down at the lobby that lead onto the next hallway. There, she spotted two of Ectoplasm's clones wandering around the area.

"There are two down on the ground patrolling the lobby. But they're pretty spread out. We should be able to slip past them...if we're quick enough."

"Okay." The boy nodded.

Tokage aimed her vision back down to the ground once again to figure out how she was going to time this maneuver. Once she felt confident about it, the girl quietly split her body up into five parts and grabbed onto Kaibara. The two teens then descended down to the main floor and silently slipped by the two clones without being seen.

Once they were in the hallway, the two resumed their earlier formation. While Tokage was acting as their eyes and ears, Kaibara was tasked with watching their backs. When it came to their exam in particular, they knew exactly why Ectoplasm was chosen as their opponent. For Kaibara, the boy's greatest strength was also his biggest weakness. And that was one-on-one combat. As for Tokage, her stamina was her biggest issue. The more opponents she had to fight, the longer it would take. Which would mean she would need to expend more energy as time went on.

Another minute or two passed before the duo came across the next lobby on the other side of the hall. The second she poked her eye around the corner, Tokage immediately yanked it back and pulled her partner close to the nearby wall.

"What is it?" The '_gyrate'_ quirk user asked.

"Twenty of them." The girl explained. As far as she knew, Ectoplasm could create up to thirty clones of himself. And each of them shared a mind link with each other. Which meant that whatever one saw, the rest did as well. They passed two of them along the way. Which meant that eight were either unaccounted for or not being used yet.

"The exit gate is on the other side of the lobby, right? So that means that his real body must be in here somewhere."

Already one step ahead of the boy, Tokage was surveying the area with her eye. In the area closest to the gate, one of the Ectoplasms was remaining relatively still and simply watching the others. In her mind, it was a pretty safe bet that he was the original.

'_He's barely inside the range of my quirk. We're probably only going to have one shot at this, so we'll need to be quick.'_ The girl thought to herself before looking towards her partner. "You remember the plan, right?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "Just make sure that you watch my back."

With one final breath, the two set their strategy into motion. In a manner very unbefitting of his usually stoic and calm demeanor, Kaibara ran directly out into the open with Tokage right behind him and immediately began taunting Ectoplasm. The pro hero was visibly thrown off by this for a few seconds before sending his clones to attack. Which was exactly what Tokage wanted.

Without hesitation, Kaibara activated his quirk in both arms and both legs and began going to town on the clones. Fortunately for the black haired boy, although there were a lot of them, they weren't very sturdy. He did feel bad about essentially ripping his teacher to shreds multiple times. But considering his current grade in math class, he pushed those feelings to the side. While that was going on, Tokage had split her body up into seventeen pieces and provided backup through the air.

With her head floating high above the fight, the girl was able to give her partner enough time to keep himself from getting overwhelmed. While at the same time, she was able to confirm her earlier suspicions. The Ectoplasm that was closest to the exit gate hadn't moved. Which told her that he must've been the real one.

Unbeknownst to the pro hero, Tokage was slowly moving one of her hands towards the exit. According to the rules of the exam, they just had to make it through the gate. They never specified exactly how much of them had to get past. Just as the girl's hand was about seven meters away from her goal, Ectoplasm activated his quirk once again and produced another clone from his mouth. Said clone then immediately swung his leg across its body and pulverized the girl's hand in one blow.

'_Fuck!'_ The girl thought as she groaned in pain. It was just her luck that the part of her opponent's prosthetic limb that hit her body was the compressed weight that he was wearing. The impact was enough to literally crush the girl's hand under the weight and it she realized that she just lost the ability to use that part of her limb for the rest of the day.

"A valiant attempt, Tokage. But these eyes see everything. Escaping will not be that easy." The '_clone'_ quirk user looked up to the girl.

Normally when someone's plan gets thwarted, they start panicking or complaining. But for some reason, a slightly manic grin formed on the green haired girl's face and she started laughing like a madwoman. "Sensei...who the heck said that we were trying to escape? We were just trying to confirm which of you was the real one."

"What?"

"Kaibara, now!"

"Got it!" The boy responded.

All of sudden, the pieces of Tokage's body that were still hovering next to the boy began violently rotating in the air and spreading out further and further with each passing second. This provided her partner with enough space to abandon his fight with the clones and make a beeline straight for his teacher. In response to this, Ectoplasm created another clone just in time to take a swing at the boy. However, Kaibara had enough wherewithal to powerslide across the ground and dodge a prosthetic limb to the face. In one fluid motion, the '_gyrate'_ quirk user got back up to his feet and tackled the teacher to the ground.

"Tokage, I got him!" Kaibara shouted as he attempted to put the teacher in a submission hold.

With the green light, the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user sent her other hand flying forward and grabbed onto the teacher's leg. Tokage remembered Kayama mentioning that Ectoplasm's prosthetics were screw-ons earlier in the school year. Which meant that they were easy to take off.

As the rest of the clones converged on their position, the two students somehow managed to relive their math teacher of both of his artificial limbs in a matter of seconds. Never one to miss an opportunity, the girl quickly grabbed both of them and sent her hand a good thirty meters into the sky above.

"You won't be getting these back, sensei!" The girl taunted with a confident smirk.

The masked man didn't even get a chance to respond before Tokage once again used her "Scale Storm" move to surround both her partner and her teacher. With the rest of the clones now out of the picture, Kaibara then activated his own quirk to twist the pro hero into an even more uncomfortable position. Once the boy had their opponent where he wanted him, he unhooked the cuffs on his belt and latched them onto the man's exposed wrist.

"**Ectoplasm has been captured. Team Tokage and Kaibara have passed the exam!" **The voice of the announcer boomed through the training building.

"I can't believe we actually just did that." Kaibara said in a slightly shameful tone. "That felt so wrong…."

"What are you talking about, dude? I think it went rather brilliantly if you ask me!" Tokage smirked while putting her body back together. Unfortunately for her, her right hand was no longer good so she would have to do without that for the rest of the day.

"That was a pretty bold gamble. Using misdirection, you made me assume that you were going for the exit gate when _I_ was your target the entire time. And taking out my legs from under me was a good idea." The mask hero said to the two students.

"We know that you mainly fight using your legs, so it was the best option for us to go with." The girl explained.

"That doesn't make it any less ridiculous." The boy rebutted.

All Tokage did was laugh at Kaibara's obvious distaste for their plan. He was pretty against it when she first proposed the idea to him. But after a few minutes of pleading her case, she somehow got him to agree to it.

"C'mon dude, all's fair in love and war. Besides, we were going up against a pro who can literally clone himself. We had to take any advantage that we could get." She patted him on the shoulder while still laughing about the entire situation.

"I feel so...dirty."

"In any case, congratulations. You two pass with flying colors." Ectoplasm interjected.

"Alright!" Tokage cheered. "Let's hurry back to the monitoring area so we can catch the rest of the matches." She continued before walking in the direction of the gate.

"Uh, Tokage...can I get those back please?" The pro hero pointed to his prosthetic limbs that the girl was still holding her left hand.

"Oh whoops, sorry sensei." She immediately apologized.

* * *

The first thing that Midoriya noticed when the waking world demanded his attention was the slight aching sensation all over his body. His head was still throbbing and he had the vague feeling that someone ran over him with a car. The green haired teen let out a soft groan as he made an attempt to push himself up. Only to immediately fall back down onto the admittedly comfortable surface that he was apparently laying on top of.

"Woah, easy there hot-stuff." A familiar voice said to him in a teasing fashion.

Midoriya finally opened his eyes, turned his head to the right and was met with the image of Tokage and Yanagi sitting in a couple of chairs at his bedside. Both students were still in their hero costumes and had some relieved expressions on their faces.

"Ugh...what happened?" He asked while rubbing the side of his face.

"You passed out after our match." Yanagi flatly stated.

"Really?"

"Yeah." Tokage answered. "Apparently you overdid it with your quirk and conked out right after you guys won."

"Oh...sorry." He apologized, more out of habit than anything else.

"It's fine."

"Are you guys okay?"

"You're the one laying in the infirmary and you're asking _us _if we're okay? Man, you really are too nice for your own good." The green haired girl teased. "But since you asked, we're good."

"How'd your match go?"

"We won, of course!" The girl beamed while flashing him a thumbs up with her left hand. The small gesture was enough for the boy to notice that Tokage was missing most of her other one. Evidently her test must've been pretty rough if she ended up losing part of her limb.

"Tokage-chan thought it was a good idea to take Ectoplasm-sensei's legs so that he couldn't fight anymore." Yanagi immediately interjected.

"What?!" Midoriya almost yelled in response to hearing that. But knowing how Tokage likes to operate, something like that was definitely expected from her.

"I'll tell you about it later. Anyways, how are you feeling?"

"Tired, and my head still kind of hurts."

"Makes sense. If your quirk is anything like mine, overusing it results in headaches. The same thing happens to me if I go overboard." The '_poltergeist'_ user said.

"Good to know." He laughed.

Midoriya then took a second to look around the room. From what he could gather, he was in the infirmary back on the main campus. It was only his second time being there. But considering the abundance of medical supplies laying around, it was a safe assumption. On the other side of the room, there were three other students laying on the adjacent beds. Todoroki, Kirishima and Bakugou were all silently sleeping. And all three of them looked to be in worse shape that he currently felt.

"What happened to them?" The boy asked.

"It turns out that three of them had to go up against All Might for their exam." Tokage explained. "From what Yaoyorozu told us, it wasn't pretty."

"Seriously?" He stole another glance over to the three 1-A boys. Having to go up against All Might must've been terrifying. He was the number one hero after all. Even if there were three of them, he doubted that they even stood a chance.

"I'll go get Recovery Girl and let her know that you're awake. She wanted to be notified as soon as you woke up." Yanagi said before standing up and making her way towards the door.

"Thanks." He gave her a quick smile.

"No problem."

As Tokage watched the small interaction, something about that piqued her interest. Over the last few weeks the two of them had been talking a lot more frequently than at the start of the year. Granted, neither one of them were particularly anti-social, relatively speaking. But she was curious as to when the two of them got so friendly with each other. On a regular day, Yanagi barely said more than three hundred words to their other classmates. But whenever those two were around each other, they seemed to have full conversations. Deciding to push that thought aside for the time being, the green haired girl turned her attention back to her friend.

"Your fight was pretty awesome to watch. I never knew that you could move a bus with your quirk."

"Normally I can't." He replied. "I don't know why, but for some reason I was able to do it pretty easily."

"It probably has something to do with the whole floating hair and glowing eyes thing we saw."

"Oh yeah...Yanagi-san did mention something about that before I blacked out." He said, wondering what that was all about. So far as he could remember, nothing like that had ever happened to him before.

All Tokage did was shrugg at that. "It was still pretty cool though. If you ask me, you looked kinda hot." She teased, causing the boy to blush a bit. Only furthering his headache.

"T-thanks."

"Ugh!" An annoyed groan came from the other side of the room. Both teens turned their attention to the far side of the room where a certain ashen blonde teen was sitting up from his bed. "Take your shitty flirting somewhere else. Some of us are trying to sleep you damn losers."

"Kinda weird of you to call us losers when _you're_ the one who got totally washed in his exam." Tokage immediately shot back, more out of a reaction than anything else.

"What the hell did you say to me?" Bakugou growled back.

"Hey...don't be mad at the truth."

Bakugou and Tokage stared each other down for a few seconds before Midoriya placed his hand on her shoulder. The girl looked at him and recognized the expression on his face as one that said: "Just let it go". All she did was give him a quick nod and quickly chose to ignore the boy.

"Did you win your fight, Deku?" Bakugou then asked Midoriya in an aggressive tone.

"What's it matter to you?" Midoriya dryly responded, earning a weird look from the '_explosion'_ quirk user. Instead of saying anything, all Bakugou did was let out a huffing sound and angrily stomped towards the entrance. Just as he opened the door to make his exit; Recovery Girl, Yangi and Katsuragi were standing right in front of him.

"Bakugou, what are you doing out of bed?" The healing heroine inquired in an annoyed tone.

"Bathroom." Bakugou stated before pushing past the three of them and heading down the hall. Leaving everyone with a variety of different expressions plastered on their faces. Deciding to worry about it later, the three women entered the room and went right over to Midoriya's bed.

"How are you feeling deary?" The elderly woman asked the boy.

"A slight headache, but I'm fine."

"Good to hear. Now that you're awake, I can give you one last look and you should be good to go. But you'll probably have to deal with that headache for the rest of the day. You went way overboard during your match and really messed yourself up. I highly recommend against doing something so reckless in the future."

"Yes ma'am." The boy nodded.

A few minutes passed as Recovery Girl gave Midoriya one final dose of her quirk before he was good to go. Naturally, even the minor portion of her power that she used left the boy a bit more sluggish than he was before. But the fact that his headache was already starting to subside was worth it.

"So what happened anyway. Things are still a bit...fuzzy." Midoriya looked to the group.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Katsuragi interjected.

"Huh?" The boy turned his gaze over to the woman who was wearing a rather serious expression on her face.

"What you did out there during our fight...to put it in simple terms, was you breaking the natural limit that your body has on your quirk."

"What does that mean?" Tokage asked.

"I don't know if it could be considered the same thing. But me and my sister are able to use a similar technique. We called it "_Overdrive"_." The woman explained.

"Overdrive?" Midoriya repeated in a curious tone.

"Yes." Katsuragi nodded. "It's what happens when you push your quirk to its maximum output. However, this is the first time I've seen anyone else use it besides the two of us."

"Katsuragi seems to have a lot of knowledge about this kind of thing, so I'm going to let her be the one to explain it to you." Recovery Girl interjected.

"When it comes to telekinetic quirks, most of them work in a very particular way. Unlike most emitter type quirks, they use two separate areas of the brain to operate. The parietal lobe and the cerebellum. Both of those areas require a significant amount of blood flow to function. When using quirks like ours, you slightly alter the amount that those parts of your brain take in." The green haired heroine explained.

"That makes sense." Yanagi nodded. Obviously she didn't have anywhere the level of knowledge that Katsuragi had on the subject. But she remembered her dad saying something similar about her quirk.

"However...when you overuse your quirk, your body tries to compensate for the increase in power by pulling blood from everywhere else. Typically, most of it goes to your head and can result in your blood vessels popping by the sudden increase in volume. That's why when you overdo it, you experience nosebleeds and headaches. And that's also why you're probably experiencing body aches and muscle soreness."

"I see." Midoriya said.

"Listen Midoriya-kun, I highly recommend that you refrain from doing that unless you are in an absolutely dire emergency. Sure, you'll get a significant increase in your power, but the backlash is too dangerous. The three times that I've done it, I was left bedridden for a few days. And the two times that I've seen my sister have to do it, she was out of commission for an entire week. If it wasn't for Recovery Girl here, you would be in much worse shape than what you are now."

"I understand." The boy was thankful that the woman was telling him this now. Otherwise he would have had to learn this on his own, which did not sound pleasant.

'_Why he can even use that ability is still a mystery though. I get that our powers are similar, but I've never heard of anyone else with a telekinetic quirk that can do it. And why was the effect on his body so similar to mine and onee-chan's? I'm starting to think that Ozehana-chan's joke about us being related might have some merit.'_ Katsuragi thought to herself, remembering the sight of the boy's glowing green eyes.

"It's hard to imagine Tornado having to do something like that. From what I've seen, she was already super powerful. Her having a power up like that would make her unbeatable." Tokage chimed in.

"The only time she ever used on the job was during the Kurobe Dam incident a few years back. Doing that put her in the hospital for a week."

Everyone in the room thought back to the event in question. It was roughly seven years ago when the largest dam in all of Japan had a hole blasted through it by some villains. Tornado, who was roughly twenty-one years old at the time, single handedly held almost the entire dam in place for a good three hours before workers managed to get it fixed. Averting what was sure to be a massive disaster if all that water got into the surrounding area. Subsequently, this was the same event that sent her hero career skyrocketing.

"So that's how she was able to do it, huh?" Yangai said to no one in particular. The grey haired girl remembered watching that event live on television when it happened with her mom. '_Tornado looked really cool back then.'_

"In any case, I just wanted to let you know the dangers of doing something like that. Activating it in and of itself is no small feat. But the longer you maintain it, the harder the crash will be."

"Thank you for telling me, Fubuki-san."

"You're welcome." Katsurgai replied with a warm smile. "Now that we got the serious part out of the way. Congratulations on passing. I'll admit that you caught me off guard out there, but don't let that take away from how well you two did."

"Thank you." Midoriya and Yangi said simultaneously.

"Unfortunately, I need to hurry and get going. So I don't have as much time to talk as I would like."

"It's no problem."

"I expect you to keep up this level of improvement by the time your next internship opportunity rolls around. Don't forget that I still have first dibs on you, Midoriya-kun."

"Of course." The boy awkwardly chuckled.

"And Yanagi-san." Katsurgai then turned her gaze over the grey haired girl. "I was actually very impressed by you as well. Your level of control over your quirk is quite astounding. It took me a while to get my "air surfing" technique down and you seem to have a pretty good mastery over it in such a short time."

"Thank you."

"If you ever want to come and intern at my agency, my door is open. I'm always on the lookout for people with telekinetic quirks and I can tell that you have a lot of untapped potential. I'd be glad to have someone like you working alongside me in the future."

A single blue eye widened at those words and for a moment it looked like the grey haired girl was speechless. This may have been the first time Tokage ever saw the girl show this level of emotion before. She was definitely going to put that in the "save" file for later.

"I'll...keep that in mind, Blizzard-san."

"Please, call me Fubuki." Katsuragi smiled. "Well anyways, congratulations to you all of you once again and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day."

"Thank you." The three students bowed at the woman as she made her exit.

"You're good to go too young man. You all have the rest of the day off, so you can go ahead and get home. I want you to take it easy for the next few days. Which also means that I want you to refrain from using your quirk for the next two days at minimum. Like Katsuragi said, the backlash from your quirk puts a massive strain on your body." Recovery Girl added on.

"Yes ma'am."

* * *

It didn't take long before the trio of students made their way out of the infirmary and over to the locker rooms to get changed out of their hero costumes. After they were done with that and dropped their suitcases off back in the classroom, Yanagi split from the green haired duo to go take care of something. Leaving Midoriya and Tokage to make the journey out of school by themselves.

Now that they were finally alone, Tokage wanted to make up for lost time and didn't hesitate to link arms with the '_telekinesis'_ quirk user. For some reason, the act didn't leave him a blushing mess like it usually did. Which let the girl know that she was going to need to come up with some new material to get a reaction out of him.

As the two turned onto the next hall to make their way out of the building, they were met with the sight of three body's approaching them on the opposite end of the hall. And one of them was very familiar.

"Hey, kohai!" The bubbly voice of Nejire Hadou echoed through the hallway. The blue haired girl wasting no time leaving her two friends and literally zooming through the air towards them.

'_Oh no…'_ Midoriya silently gulped. This was his first time seeing the girl in almost a week and he had a pretty good idea of what was about to happen.

'_How the fuck can her boobs be that big?!'_ Tokage thought at the sight of the girl and her hero costume. To say that Hadou's outfit was eye catching would be an understatement. It was a royal blue, skin-tight bodysuit with a high collar and pale mint green markings covering her torso from over her shoulders to between her legs.

Tokage wasn't necessarily one to get jealous of another girl's body. But when faced with a literal bombshell like Hadou, it was hard not to. The girl herself wasn't exactly lacking in the physical department. She had a more slim and athletic figure as opposed to a curvy one like other girls. But standing in front of the blunnette made her feel like a walking stick figure.

"H-hello Hadou-senpai." Midoriya nervously greeted the girl.

"Why haven't you called me yet?!"

…

…

…

"What?" Both greenettes said simultaneously.

"I left my number in that notebook of yours so that we can talk about quirks and stuff! Didn't you see it?"

"You did?" A very confused Midoriya tilted his head.

"Yeah, I left it on the back of the page."

"Is that so?" Tokage deviously grinned at the boy. Apparently she wouldn't have to long for some new teasing material to pop up.

Deciding to verify whether or not this information was true, the green haired boy fished into his backpack and pulled out his hero notebook. He quickly turned to the back of the page and sure enough, there was a phone number written down on the top right hand corner. '_I didn't even notice that!'_

"Damn Izuku, look at you~." Tokage teased.

"I-I um…"

"Oh hey, your girlfriend's here too!" The blunette then looked to Tokage before noticing that she was missing her hand. "Whoa! Your hand, it's gone! What happened? Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine." The girl waved off with her nub. "I lost it during our exam. It should be back in a few hours."

"That's...so...COOL! So you can regrow lost limbs? How does that work? How long do they usually take to grow back? Does that work for every part of your body?" Hadou started firing off questions with stars in her eyes.

"It's a part of my quirk. I have a minor regeneration ability but it's pretty slow." The girl answered.

"That's crazy! How are you so calm about this? I'd be freaking out if I had to walk around without a hand."

"It's happened before, so I'm kinda used to it." Tokage smirked before once again linking arms with Midoriya and nestling up a bit closer to him than usual. "Plus, I don't need to worry since I got a pretty capable pair of hands right here."

The subtle innuendo was not lost on Midoriya at all and was enough for a decent amount of blush to form on the boy's freckled cheeks.

"Oh my god, you guys are so cute together! And you're both green so it's like you match."

"Hadou, stop harassing the two of them." The boy with dark hair and pointed ears dressed in a white cloak quietly said from behind her. The group then turned their attention over to the two newcomers. In addition to the aforementioned student, the other was a taller and considerably more muscular boy with blonde hair and blue eyes.

'_Jesus Christ, this guy's ripped!'_ Tokage thought at the sight of the boy. She had never met him before, but something about him seemed vaguely familiar. And the guy's body was practically radiating an aura of power.

"Aww, but Tamaki-kun this is the guy that I was telling you about. The cute boy with the telekinesis quirk." Hadou groaned.

"I like her, she has good taste." Tokage elbowed Midoriya jokingly.

"Ah, so you're the first year that Hadou keeps going on about?" The blonde teen chimed in and extended his hand out towards the two first year students. "I'm Mirio Togata, and this is Tamaki Amajiki. Hadou's a friend of ours."

"Nice to meet you! I'm Setsuna Tokage and this fluffball here is Izuku Midoriya." The girl decided to have a bit of fun with this and placed her left hand over his right. Leading to a very awkward handshake.

"Whoops! Sorry about that." The boy now identified as Togata laughed at his little screw up.

"Don't sweat it."

"Y'know, I've heard quite a bit about you...Midoriya-kun." The blonde haired teen gave the boy a rather peculiar look.

"Me?" Midoriya pointed to himself.

"Yeah...Hadou here says that you two sometimes eat lunch together on the school roof. And that you're pretty strong."

It took a second, but the boy's words finally clicked in Tokage's mind. "Wait...that's where you run off to during lunch? The roof?"

"Y-yeah…" Midoriya admitted begrudgingly. Not even a full minute into this conversation and his secret of his lunchtime hideout spot had been blown.

"Wait, you didn't know?" Hadou popped out from behind Togata. "Y'know kohai, it's not good to keep secrets like that from your girlfriend."

"She does have a point." Tokage's grin only widened as she milked this new information.

'_Great, they're ganging up on me…'_ The boy internally groaned.

"Guys, we need to get going." Amajiki said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. For some reason, it looked as though he was hiding behind Togata.

"Yeah, Tamaki's right." The blonde boy agreed. "Sorry for bothering you guys."

"It's cool." Tokage waved off.

"Ugh fine…" Hadou pouted while folding her arms. Although pout was probably a strong word. In reality, it had the same effect as if marshmallow was trying to look tough. "I'll see you later kohai, don't forget to call me. Oh wait, I probably shouldn't say that in front of your girlfriend. That's kinda rude isn't it? Oh hey, I know! Why don't you join us for lunch sometime so all of us can talk and have a good time? I really wanna know more about your quirk."

"I'll think about it."

"Awesome! Anyways, have a good day you two!" Was all the girl said before the three upperclassmen made their way down the hall and disappeared around the corner.

Now that they were once again alone, they had time to absorb everything that happened. However, that moment was short lived before Tokage decided to keep the fun going, much to Midoriya's dismay.

"So...Izuku." She dramatically turned her head towards the boy, giving a rather devious look.

"Y-yeah."

"Tell me, are you a boob guy or an ass guy?"

"Huh?!" The boy paled and nearly suffocated on his own saliva. Did he hear that right? Maybe he was still experiencing some of the side effects of overusing his quirk.

'_Bingo!'_

"C'mon dude, I gotta know. Especially if _that's_ what I'm competing against." The girl motioned over to the corner where the three other students just were. "I mean, did you see that girl in her costume? She's got curves for days...and then some."

"I don't really know how to respond to this."

"C'mon man, everybody's got a preference."

"Well, I-I never really thought about it before."

"Don't give me that. You're a teenage guy, I find it hard to believe that you think about that kind of thing."

"W-well...what are you into?" The boy shot back for some reason. In times like this, it was best to change the topic as soon as possible. Unfortunately for him, Tokage saw this as a golden opportunity to have a bit more fun at his expense.

"Well...now that you ask~." The girl adopted a slightly sultry tone and closed the distance between the two of them. "If you really wanna know…" She further egged on by walking two of her fingers up his chest. "I'm into guys who are good looking, nice, have freckles and get easily embarrassed."

"Oh um w-well…" A now red faced Midoriya stammered out.

Suddenly, and completely ignoring the fact that they were standing in the middle of an empty hallway, Tokage leaned in a bit further and wrapped her arms around the boy's neck. The girl then detached her head from her neck and brought it up to eye level. Once they were face to face with each other, Midoriya could feel his heart rate begin to skyrocket. He certainly didn't dislike being in such close proximity to the girl. But his natural instincts were telling him to pull away before he passed out.

"So...tomorrow." The girl said, still holding her grin.

"Tomorrow?" The boy repeated.

"Our date." She clarified.

Oh yeah, the two of them were supposed to go out on their first official date tomorrow. With all the craziness surrounding the exams, it almost slipped his mind.

"I'm really looking forward to it." Tokage continued as she reattached her head to her body and released her hold on him. The girl then back away a couple of steps and place her hands behind her back.

"Me too." Midoriya smiled at the girl.

"Glad to hear it." She smiled back before resuming their previous position from earlier and linking her arms with his own. "Sorry about that, I know I can get a bit out of hand at times." She then apologized.

"It's fine, really. I actually don't mind it all that much."

"Good to hear!"

* * *

Before long, the green haired duo exited the school grounds and made the journey over to the train station. Seeing as they got out of class way earlier than normal, and that they had the next few days off from school, the trip was a lot more relaxed than normal.

"So, do you always head up to the school roof during lunch?" Tokage asked.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Why? If you don't mind me asking."

"It's just something that I've always done. I just like getting some fresh air in between classes."

"Yeah, I can see that." The girl joked. "And that Hadou girl is always there too?"

"No." He shook his head. "She kinda just...pops up sometimes."

"Oh…" She simply nodded and faceed back forward before going quiet for a few seconds.

"Is something wrong, Setsuna?"

"Nope." The girl lied. But hoping to throw the scent of her own trail, she quickly threw the heat back onto the boy. "So...since we still got a bit of time before we hit the station, I've been meaning to ask you something."

"What is it?"

"Whenever we hang out, I'm always the one asking you stuff about your life. How come you never really ask _me_ anything? What, are you not interested in me like that or something?"

"No, it's not that at all. I just uh...don't want to ask you personal stuff that you might not want to answer."

"C'mon Izuku, I think by now it's pretty clear that I'm an open book. Plus, I always ask you stuff about yourself. To be honest, it feels kind of weird."

"Oh...I never really thought about it like that."

"So, this is your chance. Ask me anything and I will answer with one hundred percent complete honesty."

The boy wasn't expecting to be put on the spot like this. As strange as it sounded, most of the questions that he had for the girl were rather plain. Like she said before, she was pretty much an open book.

"So...did you have a lot of friends growing up?" Was the question that he decided to ask for some odd reason. "You seem like you were the popular type."

"Nope not at all." She answered without missing a beat. "To be honest, the only friend I really had was Metalhead. Especially in middle school."

"Really?"

"Yeah." She shrugged nonchalantly. "Most of the other girls didn't want to hang out with me and the guys were kind of annoying."

"Why wouldn't they want to hang out with you? I find that a bit hard to believe."

"Most of them were the super girly and stuck up type. And as you already know...I'm definitely not. I don't really like being around those kinds of people. Plus they would get super jealous of me since I usually got the best grades in class and talked about me behind my back."

"That sucks." He said in an apologetic tone.

"And I'm guessing you were kinda in the same boat? Before you started the whole homeschool thing?" She inquired.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." The boy admitted. Thinking back to his less than stellar public school days.

"It sucks that you had to deal with that kind of stuff just because your quirk hadn't manifested yet. Of all the reasons not to talk to be friends with somebody, that's a pretty shitty one."

"That's just how it is nowadays."

"That doesn't make it any less ridiculous." She answered. Sure, society revolved around quirks and people preached how you should treat everyone equally despite them. But when it came to quirkless people, none of that seemed to apply.

"I agree."

"Well if you ask me, you're better off without those losers."

All Midoriya could do was laugh at that statement. "Yeah, I'd like to think that too."

"It's too bad we didn't go to school together before this. I'm pretty sure the two of us would've been awesome friends."

"You think so?"

"Hell yeah! I like to think that we balance each other out. Y'know, I have all the beauty, the brains and the charming personality. While you have the adorable disposition."

"I don't think you can really call that "balanced", Setsuna..." The boy laughed.

"Well, I guess that's just a matter of perspective, huh? But come on, don't tell me that those are some of my best qualities."

"Yeah...I guess they are some of the reasons why I like you so much." Midoriya's brain froze as soon as those words came out of his mouth. Did he really just admit that, out loud. He really needed to get home and rest up before he said something else that was even more embarrassing.

"Wow, a declaration of affection? When did you get so bold?" A now slightly blushing Tokage said in a teasing fashion. On the outside she managed to keep herself composed, but on the inside her heartrate had suddenly jumped.

"S-sorry."

"What's there to be sorry for? Nothing wrong with giving a girl a compliment every once in a while. In fact, you should do some more."

"I'll keep that in mind." He awkwardly laughed once again.

* * *

Eventually, the two parted ways and got onto their individual trains home. Once he made it back to his apartment, Midoriya wasted no time in showering, eating and getting started on his extended weekend. Fortunately for the boy, today just so happened to be one of his scheduled video chats with his father.

"Izuku, how's it going? How'd your exams go?" Hisashi Midoriya asked his son before taking a sip from his comically large cup of coffee.

"Pretty good. I passed everything, but I ended up overdoing it with my quirk during the practical portion."

"Are you okay?" The black haired man with freckles asked in a concerned tone.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just have to take it easy for the next few days." The boy explained.

"That's a relief." He let out a slightly dramatic sigh. "So what's new? Anything exciting happened?"

"Actually, there's something that I wanted to talk to you about. I could really use some advice…" The green haired boy bashfully rubbed the back of his head.

"What about?"

"I...kinda...might be going on a date tomorrow…"

…

…

…

"What?!"

* * *

**Author's Notes: First things first, Happy New Year to all of you and I hope that you have a wonderful and prosperous 2020. 2019 was kind of a bad year for me overall, but I picked up writing as a hobby so it wasn't too bad. **

1**. Like I said in the last update, I was going to be explaining the concept of "Overdrive" a bit more and it's drawbacks. These may or may not become important relatively soon. For the record, Todoroki and Kirishima were still knocked out during that entire conversation. And yes, we will be finding out how everyone else did in the next chapter. I'm going to be switching up the result a bit though. **


	24. Totally A Date

"_Breaking news straight out of Tokyo! The 'Hero Killer' strikes again. Early this morning, the pro hero Mr. Brave was found severely wounded in the eastern part of the city after a brief run-in with the known serial killer. As of right now, he is still in critical condition and there has been no word yet on any possible leads pertaining to the whereabouts of the man calling himself "Stain". Citizens in the area are encouraged to stay vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the local authorities."_ The voice of the announcer could be heard on the television in the living room.

'_Damn, another one?'_ Tokage thought as she walked through the hallway.

"_Also, yet another mysterious bombing in Ishikawa prefecture. This makes three in the last month and police have yet to identify those responsible for these atrocious acts of villainy."_

"Holy hell!" Nanao Tokage said from her spot on the couch as she scarfed down a handful of pretzels. The woman had the next few days off from class and decided to spend her free time back home. "Things sure are getting out of control aren't they?"

"I'll say." The younger Tokage sibling agreed.

"So...what'd you get all dolled up for?" The woman asked in a slightly invasive tone. It was a rare sight to see the girl in anything other than a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt when she didn't have school. And judging by the way she was dressed, she was definitely looking to impress somebody.

"Nowhere, just hanging out with some friends." The younger sibling kept her answer simple and attempted to rush out of the door. Knowing her sister, she was going to try and pry into her personal life. And the last thing she wanted was for her to find out that she was going on a date of all things.

"Sure you are…."

"Anyways...I'll see you later. Have fun freeloading, and make sure that you restock dad's pretzels before he gets home."

"See you later, runt!" Was all she managed to say before Tokage closed the door behind her.

Without missing a beat, the elder Tokage sibling pulled out her phone and scrolled over to her contacts list. She already knew that her sister was up to something based on how she was acting. And there was no way in hell she wasn't about to find out what it was. With a quick swipe of the finger, the green haired college student pressed the "call" button on her phone and held the device up to her ear.

"_Hello?"_ The voice of Tetsutetsu said on the other side of the line.

"Tetsutetsu, how ya' been?! Have you gotten those eyelashes trimmed yet?"

"_I'm doing well, Nanao…. What do you want?"_

"Why did you automatically assume that I wanted something? What, a girl can't just have a friendly chat with her favorite iron-eating little brother?"

"_We both know that's not how you operate."_

"Yeah, you're right." The woman conceded. "Anyways...you wouldn't happen to know what Setsuna is doing today, would you?"

"_No…"_ The silver haired boy slightly hesitated. To his credit, Tetsutetsu was a very honest guy. But that also meant that he was a less than stellar liar.

"You're not lying to me, are you?"

"_Of course not."_

"Look Metalhead, we both know that the runt tells you everything. And if she's not spending the day with you, that means she's going out with someone else. So, either you come clean and tell me where she's going. Or...I show your mom that picture I took when I caught-"

"_Okay, okay, okay!"_ The silver haired teen hastily sputtered out. "_I'll tell where she's going. Just for the love of God, don't do that to me."_

"Excellent!"

* * *

Time seemed to drone on as Midoriya patiently waited for Tokage to arrive. The two of them agreed to meet at the water fountain near the festival entrance and it was getting closer and closer to their scheduled rendezvous. In hindsight, the boy probably should've have arrived a full thirty minutes earlier than he was supposed to. But he didn't want to run the risk of being late.

Overall, it seemed to be a perfect day. The sun was shining, the mid-afternoon air was smooth and there was just the right amount of cloud cover. From what he could hear, there was a lot of excitement going on in the festival. The green haired boy had never been to one before. But from everything he knew about them, there were supposed to be a ton of concession stands and games. So there was definitely a lot of excitement to be had.

'_Maybe I should've worn something more...appropriate.'_ The boy thought to himself while looking down at his outfit and wondering if he should've tried putting on something more traditional. At the moment, the green haired teen was wearing a short sleeve, black button up shirt, some khaki pants and his signature red shoes. He would've preferred wearing one of his regular t-shirts. But according to his dad, he needed to look at least somewhat presentable. Luckily, he was somehow able to make it to the barber shop before it closed last night.

"Yo, Izuku!" A familiar voice called his name. The '_telekinesis'_ user turned around and was met with the sight of Tokage rapidly approaching him with a smile on her face. As it turns out, the girl also decided to forgo traditional clothing and opted for something more modern. Tokage was wearing a sleeveless blue shirt and a white skirt along with a pair of black socks that came up to about the midpoint of her thigh.

"Hello S-Setsuna." The boy nervously greeted with a wave.

"What's up? Wow, you got here pretty early. Were you looking forward to our date that much?" The girl wasted no time in getting the fun started.

"I uh...w-well, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't late is all."

"It's cool. I must admit that I was pretty excited about today. I even made sure to catch an early train all the way over here."

"That's good to know." He replied.

"Um Izuku…" She began with a devious smirk and striking a pose. "This is the part where you're supposed to compliment my outfit...go ahead."

"Oh uh, it's nice. You look really cute." He admitted with a wobbly smile.

"You think so? I had a hard time picking out what to wear last night. I'm not really into wearing kimonos, so this is what I went with. Tell me, does this skirt make by butt look flat?" She "innocently" asked while posing with her hips out and a hand behind her head.

"This is one of those questions where no matter what my answer is, you're going to tease me about it right?"

"Hmph." Tokage folded her arms indignantly while slightly smirking. "You're finally learning, good." She continued before grabbing the boy by his hand. The small gesture being enough to cause his heart rate to jump. He already knew that Tokage was pretty forward, but he wasn't expecting hand-holding right out the gate. As much as this surprised him, he didn't make any effort to let go. "You look pretty nice too. And I see you even cut your hair again. It's nice to know that you got all dolled up for little ol' me."

"Thanks."

"No problem." She replied. "Now, there's a ton of stuff to do and we got all afternoon to enjoy this place. I remember you saying that you've never been to a festival before, so allow me to be your guide."

"So what are we going to do first?" He inquired.

"We're gonna go play some games and win us some prizes!" The girl announced with a slight gleam in her eyes.

* * *

True to her word, the game section of the festival was the first spot where Tokage took her date. As expected, the area was absolutely filled with people of all ages running around and having a good time. Midoriya quietly gulped as he looked around. Like he had said many times before, the boy wasn't exactly good with crowds. He was so used to being by himself for most of life that the idea of being in such a densely populated area was a bit nerve wracking.

"Alright, now where should we go first?" Tokage asked, unaware of the boy's growing anxiety.

"No clue, I'm not really sure what goes on at these things."

"Good point. Most of the games here aren't too difficult, but we should start with something simple." She tapped her finger to her chin. A few seconds passed as the girl's eyes scanned across the area before spotting an empty stand a bit further down the path. "How about ring toss? It's pretty easy and they have some good prizes." She pointed.

"Yeah, sounds like fun." He smiled.

"Well then what are we waiting for? Let's go win us some cool stuff!" The girl announced before once again grabbing his hand and pulling him forward. This time however, Tokage took the liberty of interlocking their fingers together.

"You're cool with me holding your hand, right?" She asked, genuinely curious if she was moving too fast.

"Y-yeah, of course." Was his honest answer.

"Good." She gave him a toothy smirk.

Once the young duo were at the ring toss stand, they took a moment to look things over. It wasn't uncommon for games like this to be rigged in some sort of way. In fact, Tokage could remember this one time she went to a festival as a kid where all of the prizes for the shooting games were actually glued to the shelves. But, everything seemed to be in order from what they could tell. And some of the prizes actually looked really cool. More specifically, there was dinosaur plushie that the girl had her eye on.

It didn't take long for the two to pay for their rings and get started. The rules were pretty simple, you start with ten rings per person and that was how many attempts that you were given. The bottles themselves were stacked in a giant square on the table and were color coordinated between clear, green and black. Clear bottles would get you a small prize, green would get you a medium, and naturally black would get you a large one. The catch though was that there were significantly less black and green bottles than clear ones. On top of that, all the bottles were made of glass, which meant that the rings would bounce of them pretty easily.

"Alright, here goes nothing!" Tokage announced with confidence as she made her first attempt. Only for her ring to bounce in between a few clear bottles before flying off the table. "Dang…."

"It was a good throw." Midoriya attempted to reassure her. "You almost had it."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." She sarcastically replied. "Now it's your turn."

The green haired boy took a deep breath before setting eyes on his target. He decided to aim high and make an attempt at one of the black bottles near the center of the table. He had no idea if there was a specific kind of technique that he should be using. But he figured that he might get lucky. With a rather smooth underhand toss, the boy made his attempt. For a brief moment it seemed as though he was going to score the black bottle, however the ring bounced off as soon as it made contact. Fortunately, lady luck was on his side today and the ring ended up landing on one of the green bottles.

"Winner!" The woman behind the counter announced. "Wow, and on your first toss too. Nice job kid. You get to pick out any medium sized prize that you want."

"Lucky." A slightly jealous Tokage elbowed him on the arm.

Midoriya looked behind her to where all the prizes were hanging up on the wall. To be honest, there was nothing available that caught his eye. But there was one item that he would be able to get his hands on.

"I'll take the dinosaur plushie on the left." He told the woman while pointing to the item in question. Earning a rather surprised look from his date.

"Good choice." The lady clapped her hands together and walked over to the prize wall.

The green haired girl then took the moment and lean up a bit closer on her date and whisper to him. "_Why that one?"_ She asked.

All Midoriya could do was blush and awkwardly rubbed the back of his head. "I noticed you eyeing it a minute ago and it seemed like a nice pick."

"Aww…" The girl gushed dramatically. "Aren't you just the sweetest fluffball ever."

"I g-guess."

"_So tell me…"_ She pulled him in close and lowered her tone. "_Did you use your quirk to score that prize?"_

"_What?! No!"_ He whisper-shouted so the woman couldn't hear him. "_I couldn't do something like that. That's cheating. Besides, Recovery Girl said I shouldn't use my powers until after tomorrow."_

"Yeah, I thought so." The girl shrugged. "You're way too much of straight shooter for that."

"Alright, here you go!" The woman suddenly appeared in front of them and presented the young duo with their reward. It was a red and blue doll in the shape of velociraptor. Coincidentally, this just so happens to be Tokage's favorite type of dinosaur. Midoriya took the item from the woman and then proceeded to hand it to Tokage. Who graciously accepted it before hugging it close to her body and grinning like a madwoman.

Hoping to capitalize on their success, the two greenettes used their remaining rings to try and win another prize. Unfortunately for them, the rest of their throws didn't yield the results that they wanted. With no more rings left, the two decided to cut their losses and take another look around the area to see what the festival had to offer.

* * *

After a thirty minutes of walking around and trying their hands at a couple of more games, the young duo came upon a mask stand that didn't currently have any other customers.

"Hey, we should get some masks as souvenirs." Tokage happily suggested while pointing to the vendor.

"You think so?" The boy turned his gaze over to the stand in question. They were close enough to where he could see the wide array of cartoonish and traditional style masks hanging up on the rack behind the counter. And from what he could tell, most of them looked really cheap.

"Heck yeah! Come on!" She wasted no time in pulling him along.

Once they were right in front of the stand, the two took a moment to get a better look at what there was to offer. There was a wide selection of masks of all ranging from old era cartoons to custom ones that looked to be hand painted. Midoriya could recognize a lot of them from some of his old comic books and shows that he watched as a kid. But there were others that he had no clue about.

"I think you should pick that one." Tokage patted him on the shoulder and pointed to one on the center shelf. The item in question was a plastic, white rabbit mask with the image of a tree painted onto the right side of the face. The boy would be lying if he said that it didn't look nice, and it was well within his price range since it was only five hundred yen.

"Why that one?" He asked the girl.

"Well, the kanji you use to spell your name means "green valley", right? It seems like it would be a good fit." Was her response.

"That makes sense." The boy acquiesced.

"Which one do you think I should get?" She followed up, causing the boy to look around the shelves. The green haired teen took a moment to think about his selection before pointing to a blue and white "devil" mask with a white monobrow and large canine teeth at the top.

"That one."

"Why?" She asked, genuinely curious about his decision.

"It's...got a lot of personality. Kinda like you do." He smiled.

"Geez Izuku, when the hell did you become such a smooth talker? I'm starting to think the whole timid, shy guy routine was just an act." The girl began laughing. Loud enough to draw the gazes of a few passerbys.

Seeing as they were pretty happy with the selections, the two students quickly paid for their souvenirs. Well actually, Tokage was the one that paid for them. Midoriya tried to protest, but the girl insisted on covering the price since he already got her the dinosaur plushie back at the ring toss stand.

* * *

"Hey, I gotta go to the little hero's room. Be right back." Tokage told Midoriya as the two made their way past the event stage where some local high school band was performing.

"Okay." He nodded.

While the girl made her way to the bathroom, Midoriya moved a bit further down the path and planted himself under a large tree that provided him quite a bit of shade. The green haired boy was having a really good time so far and he was happy that Tokage appeared to be as well. He was absolutely certain that he was going to mess things up at some point. But up to now, everything was going smoothly.

"Oh shit dude, you were right!" A male voice suddenly announced from nearby.

"See, I told you that it was him!" Another said in response.

Midoriya directed his attention to where the outburst came from and immediately jerked his head in the opposite direction. For a split second, the green haired boy panicked and thought about walking away. But he knew damn well that he couldn't just abandon his date like that. Once he got himself recomposed, Midoriya simply pretended that he wasn't paying the individuals any attention. Unfortunately for him, the two of them had other plans.

"Yo, Deku!" One of the boys called out to him.

The two young men in question looked to be about his age and were still wearing their school uniforms. One had short, brown hair with droopy eyes. While the other looked pretty normal with his black hair and black eyes.

"Oh man, I haven't seen you in ages!" The black haired one waved at him, only to be met with silence.

As luck would have it, the two boys didn't get the hint and walked right up to the green haired teen. To his credit, Midoriya tried to act as cool as he could. But considering the fact that he was now within arm's reach of two of his former bullies, he could already feel his body begin to tense up.

"Yo Deku, how have you been man? How long's it been? Like almost a year, right?"

"What do you want?" Midoriya asked in a dry tone while not bothering to look their way.

"We thought we saw you earlier and just wanted to see if it was really you. Not a lot of people are running around with green hair and freckles, so it was a pretty safe bet." The brown haired one laughed.

"Is that all?"

"Yeah." The boy replied, slightly taken aback by how the greenette was speaking to them.

"If that's all you wanted, then you can go on your way and leave me alone."

That comment was more than enough for the two boys to give each other a set of curious glances. They were absolutely certain that the guy they were talking to was Midoriya. The green hair and freckles was more than enough proof of that. The last time they had seen him, the boy was still a nervous and stuttering mess. Now he was acting all cold and aloof.

"What, now that you're some big shot U.A. student you think you're too good to talk to us? Y'know, it was a surprise seeing _you_ of all people in the big Sports Festival. Your match with Bakugou was pretty…crazy."

"Seriously. None of our classmates believed us when we told them that we used to go to school with you guys. We all knew that Bakugou was amazing, but you pretty much stole the show." The other boy's tone then shifted slightly "So…your quirk. How long have y-you uh…"

"None of your business." Midoriya quickly cut him off. His voice now laced with a very noticeable amount of venom.

"Geez, what the hell's your problem dude?" The brunette teen scowled. "A couple of classmates drop by to say hello and you can't even bother to look our way? You think that because you're a hero candidate now you can just look down on the rest of us?"

"That's pretty funny coming from someone who used to torment me for being quirkless."

A brief moment of painfully awkward silence passed between the trio as those words sunk in. Midoriya's comment was enough for the other two to pause and give each other a series of uncomfortable looks.

"Look Midoriya." The black haired teen started. "We're really sorry for how we used to treat you-"

"No you're not."

"Huh?"

"If you were really sorry then you wouldn't have done what you did in the first place." He told them. In truth, the fact that they even bothered to give him some half-assed apology irritated the green haired boy quite a bit.

"Look man, we know what we did to you was wrong." The black haired teen continued. "Running around with Bakugou and letting him pick on you all the time was not cool. But c'mon dude, you know how scary that guy can be. If we said anything, then he would've tried to blow one of _us_ up."

"Plus you kind of brought it on yourself for always talking about wanting to be a hero in front of him when you didn't even have a quirk yet. We all know the guy has a massive ego. But I guess that doesn't really matter now since you it turns out that you're actually pretty powerful, huh?"

"So, the fact that I _do_ have a quirk now makes it all okay?" The green haired teen finally faced the brunette boy and looked him in the eye. He held his gaze for a solid five seconds before letting out an exasperated sigh. "Look, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Bakugou. I've done some _growing up_ recently, and I'm not the same pushover that I used to be. There was no point coming over here and trying to apologize to me because I don't accept it. The only reason you even bothered to do this was because I now have a quirk. I doubt you'd feel the same way if you thought that I was still quirkless."

Both boys were taken aback by how blunt Midoriya was being. They were so used to the boy being jumpy and feeble that the way he was speaking to them made him sound like an entirely new person. Neither of them expected him to be totally forgiving. But they certainly weren't expecting this. Hell, they would go so far as to say that his personality was totally different.

"Hey Deku, just because you-"

"Oh, there you are babe!" The voice of Tokage suddenly interjected, much to Midoriya's relief. The green haired girl wasted no time in putting herself right in the middle of the three boys and grabbing onto Midoriya's hand with her own. "I was wondering where you ran off to." She continued with a smile.

"Babe?" One of the boys said in a curious tone.

"Sorry for taking so long, hot-stuff." The girl said.

"It's fine." The green haired boy replied.

"So, who are these guys? Are they..._friends_ of yours?" She asked while putting extra emphasis on that word in particular. Thankfully, Midoriya was able to catch onto what she was doing as was more than happy to play along.

"No...not at all." He calmly answered.

"Oh, too bad." Tokage shrugged before turning towards the two teens. "Sorry boys, but me and Izuku are in the middle of a date right now. Catch you later."

Before either teen could say a word, the girl started walking down the path with her date in tow. Leaving the two boys completely gobsmacked by what just happened. Not only was the once shy and meek Deku now super strong with a flashy quirk. Apparently he had a hot girlfriend to boot. Whatever happened to the guy in the last year, he certainly did change a lot.

"Thanks for that." Midoriya said to the girl once they were a good bit of distance away from his former classmates.

"I saw how intense your face looked when I was walking up. Obviously you wanted to be as far away from those guys as possible." Tokage replied.

"Yeah, you're right about that." He said with a weak chuckle.

"So what was up with that anyway?"

"They were just some guys that used to go to school with."

"Oh…" Was all she said. Obviously there was a bit more to it than that. But she wasn't going to pry into it too much. Instead, the girl just wanted to get back to having a good time on their date.

Thankfully, her and Midoriya were on the same page in that regard. "So, what did you want to do next?"

"Let's grab a bite to eat. All this walking around has worked up quite the appetite."

"Sounds good to me." He smiled.

* * *

Eventually Midoriya and Tokage found themselves walking through the concession stands. There were so many options to choose from that the young duo didn't even know where to start. For Midoriya, the boy wasn't craving anything in particular. However he was hoping to avoid any junk food if he could help it. As for Tokage, the girl wasn't really in the mood for something sweet. So she was determined to find something savory to satisfy her hunger. With some luck, they might even find a place that sells some yakitori.

For the next few minutes the two greenettes wandered between different concession stands in hopes of finding something good. Most of what everyone was serving was either some type of dessert or candy. Which made sense considering that it was what most people prefer to eat during the summertime festivals. Especially in the middle of the afternoon. Just when the two were about to give up, a familiar voice caught their attention.

"You two look like you're having trouble."

Midoriya's head turned so fast that you could almost hear the vertebrae in his neck crack. Sure enough, the boy's suspicions were confirmed when he found himself staring into a set of pink eyes. "Unohana-san?"

"Brainboy?" Tokage echoed, calling the quirkless teen by his new unofficial nickname.

"What's up?" He smiled at the two while giving a polite wave.

"What are you doing here?"

"Uh...working." He quickly pointed upwards to the sign that read "_Yukihira Udon"_ in big bold letters above his head.

"I didn't know you worked at an udon shop." Tokage said to the boy jokingly. "I assumed you'd be working in some sort of lab with high-tech lasers and robots flying all over the place."

The black haired teen let out a quick laugh at the girl's words. "Well, I'm only sixteen. They don't exactly let people our age around stuff like that."

"Good point."

"I didn't know that you were going to be here." Midoriya chimed in.

"Yeah, my boss got us this spot at the last minute and I'm working the afternoon shift. It's technically my day off, so he's paying me double for doing this. And I couldn't exactly refuse the extra cash." Unohana explained.

"Can't argue with that."

"So how have you been?" Tokage asked the boy. "You getting a lot of customers?"

"Business has been pretty steady. The only problem is that it's starting to get pretty hot out here." He replied while pretending to fan himself off with his hand.

At the moment, Unohana was currently wearing a long sleeve, black t-shirt underneath his apron. Tokage was about to make a comment about how his choice of attire was only contributing to his current predicament. But the girl's mind flashed back to that time when she first met the boy during their internships and how she noticed the very deliberately placed scars on his wrists. So for the moment, she just held her tongue.

"So, what are you two up to?" The black haired teen then asked.

"We're on a date." Tokage answered without missing a beat.

"Wow, you actually convinced Midoriya-kun to go out with you on an actual date? Oh man, now I've seen it all."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Midoriya asked, only slightly offended.

"Only that you're the most socially awkward person that I've ever met in my life." Unohana retorted.

"He's got a point, Izuku?" Tokage added on with a not-so-subtle smirk. After a few more laughs at the green haired boy's expense, Unohana decided to switch topics.

"So, you two looking for something to eat?"

"Yeah." They both said in unison.

"Well you're in luck. I just so happen to know of a place that serves some pretty good udon noodles. From what I hear, the guy serving them in pretty cool too."

"That was a pretty nice sales pitch, Brainboy." The girl laughed. "So what've you got?"

"Well, we have a few selections. But our special is the new chicken udon that we've been serving at the restaurant for the last couple of months. The stuff practically sells out everyday during the lunch rush."

"What's so great about it?"

"Aside from the noodles themselves being good. The chicken is marinated in a freshly made spicy peanut sauce and grilled the morning of. It's got a nice bit of kick to it, but not enough to overwhelm your senses."

"How long did it take you to rehearse that little spiel?"

"I'm actually the one who wrote it." The boy shot back to the girl's joke.

"It does sound pretty good." Midoriya interjected. "I remember you saying that it was one of your more popular dishes. And I actually wouldn't mind trying a bowl, what about you?" He then turned towards Tokage.

"Count me in!" The girl smiled.

In practically no time, Unohana whipped up two fresh bowls of udon noodles and served the two greenettes their meals. To say that the dish was delicious would be a gross understatement. After one bite, it became very apparent as to why the stuff sold out as much as the boy claimed it did.

"So, how'd your presentation go." Midoriya asked in between bites.

"A total success!" The quirkless boy beamed confidently. "I've already got a few offers from some pretty big schools. And I'm actually heading to I-Island tomorrow to get an early peak at the big expo. It's the reason why I'm working today. Everything's going to be paid for, but a little extra spending money doesn't hurt."

"That's great!" The green haired teen almost shouted. He knew that the boy was pretty busy with this thing for the last couple of months. But he was happy that all of his hard work finally paid off.

"Well I'm happy to hear that everything went smoothly." Said Tokage after slurping down a few more noodles. "So what was your big presentation about anyway?"

"Nothing serious. I just created a new water purifying chemical that can be used on an industrial level." The boy answered nonchalantly.

"Yeah...that sounds way too complex for me to even want to understand." The girl deadpanned. She already knew the guy was a genius, but something like that sounded like it was a major scientific breakthrough. "Oh my god, these noodles are amazing! I can see why they're so popular."

"Seriously. And the chicken it cooked to perfection." Midoriya agreed with his date.

"I'm glad you like it. We make tons of this stuff everyday. The only downside is that clean-up is a hassle."

"Why is that?"

"The sauce itself is actually pretty flammable because of the peanut oil that we use to make it. We need to scrub down the stoves and grills extra hard to avoid any potential mishaps back at the restaurant." He explained.

"Sucks."

"It is what it is."

After a few more minutes of talking and catching up, Midoriya and Tokage decided to continue on with their date. Business started picking up at the udon stand and they didn't want to bother the quirkless teen anymore while he was trying to work. With one final wave, they bid him farewell and promised to show up at the orphanage after their summer training camp was over with.

* * *

Now that they had some food in their guts, the two teenagers found an empty bench in a less populated area of the nearby park to sit down and relax their feet. Both of them had been having a wonderful time so far and were really happy with how their first official date was turning out.

Seeing as the two of them now had a bit of privacy, Tokage decided to take advantage of this moment. The green haired girl scooted closer to Midoriya and leaned her head on his shoulder while interlocking their fingers together.

"I've had a really great time so far, Izuku."

"Me too." He answered honestly. Under normal circumstances, being this close to a girl would leave him a fumbling mess. But considering that they had spent about half of the outing holding hands of all things, Midoriya found himself actually being able to keep his cool for once.

"Thanks again for getting me this adorable raptor plushie. I can't wait to add to my collection."

"Collection?" He tilted his head in confusion.

"I...may or may not have a collection of dino-themed dolls and figurines in my room." A barely noticeable tinge of pink appeared on the girl's cheeks at her admission.

"Oh, cool." The boy replied. A brief few seconds of silence lingered in the air between them before Midoriya finally worked up the nerve to broach a topic that had been on his mind all day. "S-so uh...I know this is probably not the best time to ask this. B-but uh...so are we like..."

"Dating?" The girl finished his question for him. "Well, this _is_ our third date. And it's pretty obvious that we're both into each other. So I don't think that saying we are is too off the mark."

"Third?" A confused Midoriya stated.

"Yeah, I'm counting those first two "not-dates" as well." She shrugged.

All the boy could do was give out a slight laugh at the girl's bluntness. "I guess that makes sense."

Tokage couldn't help the slight smile that formed on her face at the boy's words. In truth, she was glad that he was the one to bring up the topic because she herself planned on doing it later on in the day. But now that they were finally having the talk, there was no point in beating around the bush.

"But a-are you sure that you w-want to date me though?" Midoriya continued on while twiddling his thumbs.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, I'm not really experienced when it comes to this kind of stuff. I mean, I've never really had friends before let alone tried my hand at dating. And honestly, I'm not really the best looking guy out there."

"Well...as long as we're being honest, I don't really have too much experience in dating either. I mean, the only real frame of reference I have is watching my aunt strike out with my dad every other week. And my sister has pretty terrible taste in guys, so she isn't exactly the best example to go by."

There was a minor rumbling in the bushes a few meters away from them, but the two teens just chalked it up to some small animal or something.

"Still…" Midoriya continued on. His face slowly getting redder by the second. "I'm not exactly entirely opposed to the idea of us dating."

"Well obviously not." The girl shot back. "Otherwise you wouldn't have agreed to go out with me."

"Good point."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're absolutely adorable when you get all embarrassed like that."

"Yes, you have...multiple times."

Silence once again fell upon the two students and the last few minutes finally caught up with Tokage's mind. On the inside, the girl was doing her best to remain as calm as possible. She was telling the truth when she said that she had next to no experience when it comes to whole romance thing. But if all those old movies and American soap operas that her and her sister used to watch were anything to go on. She had a pretty good idea about what her next move should be.

"So…" The now blushing girl began twisting a strand of her hair with her index finger. "I'm going to kiss you now."

**404 ERROR!**

**404 ERROR!**

**IZUKU MIDORIYA. EXE HAS STOPPED WORKING.**

**PLEASE CALL SYSTEMS ANALYST FOR SUPPORT!**

"W-what?" Midoriya sputtered out after rebooting his brain. Did she really just say that? Like, with actual words? Did Tokage really just say that she wanted to kiss him?

"A kiss." The girl repeated. "I mean, we've already held hands. It's pretty much the next logical step if you ask me. I was going to go for it anyway, but I figured that I should at least give you a warning."

"O-oh uh...I g-guess I can't really argue with that logic." He gave the girl a weak laugh while nervously scratching the side of his face.

"So, did you maybe want to give it a shot?"

The green haired teen hesitated for a moment as he thought about his answer. Was he ready for this? In all honesty, probably not. But as much as he wanted to just fold under the pressure. Part of him really wanted to give it a try. He may have briefly considered the possibility of this happening when he was getting ready for this date. But now that he was actually in the situation, there wasn't any going back. "Y-yeah, sure."

"Cool."

Seeing as they were now on the same page, Tokage decided to take the lead and faced towards him. She knew that out of the two of them Midoriya was the least likely to make the first move. Of course, she didn't mind considering he was just naturally a shy person. And even though she probably wouldn't admit it out loud, she kind of enjoyed the idea taking charge.

Time seemed to slow down as the two's faces slowly came together. Midoriya's face was quickly turning more red by second and Tokage was pretty sure that her's wasn't much different. It was only now that she really how crazy this entire situation was. Her brain had pretty much been on autopilot for the last few minutes. But now she was acutely aware of exactly what she was about to do.

With no going back now, all Tokage did was close her eyes and lean forward a bit more. This was it, she was totally about to do this. Just a few more centimeters and both of their lips would be making contact.

"**Just fucking kiss him already you damn spazz!"** The voice in the back of her head yelled out at her, giving the girl that last bit of motivation she needed to commit to the act. It was weird how that voice sounded exactly like her older sist-

"What the hell?!" Tokage stopped and opened her eyes before looking to the bushes behind the bench. And and equally confused Midoriya quickly following suit.

"Dammit Nanao, you just had to open your mouth. Didn't you?" A very familiar adult female voice groaned in a hushed but annoyed tone.

"Sorry, but the two of them were taking forever and I'm tired of holding up my phone like this."

A sense of pure and utter dread suddenly washed over the '_lizard tail splitter_' user's body. No way, there was no way in hell that this could be happening. And right now of all times. Electing to confirm whether or not her suspicions were true, Tokage stood up from her seat and march right over to the bushes. Once she was there the girl poked her head over the vegetation and sure enough, both Kayama and Nanao were doing their best to look an unassuming as possible.

"What the hell are you two doing here?!"

"Oh, hey Setsuna. Fancy meeting you here. How's your day going so far?" The elder Tokage sibling innocently asked while shoving her phone in her back pocket.

"What's going on?" Midoriya questioned as he walked up to join the girl to see what all the commotion was about. Only to pause at the sight of his hero art history teacher and a woman with short green hair crouching down on the ground.

"M-M-Midnight-sensei?!"

"Midoriya please, call me Kayama when we're outside side of class."

"Were you two spying on us?" Tokage grimaced. She had a pretty good idea about what was going on. But she needed the confirmation just to make sure.

"_Spying _is such an ugly word." Kayama stated while folding her arms and looking away from them. "I was simply monitoring this little outing of yours to make sure that nothing _too_ inappropriate happened."

"What?!" Midoriya blushed at the woman's implication.

"Oh, I wasn't talking about you Midoriya. I know you're a very nice and respectable young man who would never try anything indecent. Unless...you've simply been pretending this entire time." The woman wiggled her eyebrows in a very suggestive manner.

"Well, I was definitely spying on the two of you." Nanao interjected without the slightest bit of shame in her voice.

"How?" Tokage almost hissed out.

"Tetsutetsu told me about your little rendezvous today."

Tokage made a mental note to have a little talk with her silver haired excuse of a best friend later. She knew that the guy was pretty good when it came to keeping secrets. And there was no doubt in her mind that her sister had done something to coerce him to spill the beans. But that certainly wasn't going to save him from her getting some type of revenge for blowing the whistle on her date.

Now that the jig was up. Nanao saw no point in holding back any longer.

"So...you're the guy the runt's been crushing on." The woman hopped over the bush and walked right over to Midoriya. The boy recognized the girl's face from the pictures around Tokage's house. Although they look very similar, the elder Tokage sibling's hair wasn't as fluffy as her sister's and she was a good five centimeters taller.

"H-hello." He gave the woman a polite bow.

Instead of answering, Nanao closed the distance between the two of them in a single stride. The next thing Midoriya felt was a pair of hands place themselves on his cheeks and found himself staring into a set of dark green eyes.

"Hmm...you've got a plain face, but still pretty cute. And you have nice hair." Said the woman while examining his features. She then grabbed his shoulders and ran her hands down his arms. "Surprisingly good definition under that shirt." The greenette then felt around his chest and abdomen and nodded as if satisfied. Without any warning, the woman took a couple of steps back before detaching her head from her body and floating it to the other side. "And you have a pretty nice ass."

"Okay, that's enough!" A now annoyed Tokage grabbed her sister's floating head and held it between her hands. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't go around checking out my friends."

"What the big deal? I was just inspecting the goods." The decapitated body shrugged.

'_Ah, so I guess their entire family is like this.'_ Midoriya thought to himself. Considering the fact that Kayama was a part of this group, he really should've expected it to be this way.

"Why are you here?"

"My little sister goes on her first official date and tried to do it in secret. Why wouldn't I be here? I'll have you know that it's my duty as an older sister to document this future reference."

"What do you mean, _''document_"?'' Tokage quirked an eyebrow at her sister's head.

"We may or may not have taken about a hundred photos of you two while you were on your date."

"We?" Midoriya questioned while looking towards his teacher.

"I have no idea what she's talking about." Kayama feigned innocence. Even though she herself had already sent a pretty decent amount of photos to the girl's father.

Hoping to get some semblance of control on this situation. Tokage took a deep breath to calm herself down. In all fairness, she expected something like this to happen. It's the exact reason why she didn't tell either of them that she was going out on a date to begin. And if the last few minutes were any indication. She needed to wrap this up as soon as possible.

"I greatly appreciate you two coming all the way out here to ruin my life." She began with a heavy level of sarcasm. "But would you kindly leave us alone now?"

"As much I would love to do the exact opposite of that, it's getting pretty late." Nanao began explaining. "We were actually planning on taking you home after you wrapped up things up."

"That's unless you two planned on doing some...extracurricular activities." Now it was the black haired woman's turn to have a little bit of fun with this. Her words more than enough to cause Midoriya's cheeks to flush at the implication.

Instead of responding, Tokage simply grabbed the boy by his hand and began walking down the path to get away from these two headaches. The longer they stayed there, the more likely it was that Midoriya would burst in flames from embarrassment.

"We parked by the train station. Be there in fifteen minutes!" The elder Tokage sibling shouted out.

"That should be more than enough time to get the job done you two!" The "adult" of this situation followed up.

'_How can she just say that out loud?'_ Midoriya thought. Legitimately wondering if either woman knew what the word "shame" meant.

* * *

After ditching those other two, the young couple found a nice and secluded spot a bit further away from the festival. But just to be safe, Tokage made sure to keep an eye out for any floating body parts.

"Sorry about that." The girl apologized with a weak laugh.

"It's fine." The boy replied before attempting to play devil's advocate. "I think they were just worried about you is all."

"No, they were just here to embarrass me. Believe me, my sister is _way_ more off the handle than I am. Just be glad that I got you out of there before she started flirting with you."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Plus, they kind of ruined our moment back there didn't they?" The girl said as she took a step forward and closed the distance between the two of them.

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

For the next few seconds, the two teenagers gazed into each other's eyes. Unfortunately, neither of them could really bring themselves to take the next step. They didn't know whether it was out of mutual embarrassment, or the likely possibility that they were still being watched. But something about the moment just didn't feel right. Instead, Tokage opted to do the next best thing. The girl leaned up on her toes, wrapped her arms around the boy's neck and gently placed her lips on his left cheek.

"We can pick up where we left off some other time. Hopefully we'll actually be able to have some privacy." The girl feigned confidence while twisting a strand of her between her fingertips.

"R-right." A now blushing Midoriya nodded his head. All while trying to keep his heart rate steady.

"I had an awesome time today."

"Me too. I'm really looking forward to the next one."

"Oh wow, you're already planning out our second date? How presumptuous of you~." The girl teased.

After a brief moment of fumbling over his words, and a few laughs from Tokage. The girl wrapped the green haired boy in slighter tighter hug than usual. Ulike most times before, Midoriya actually reciprocated the act of affection by gently wrapping his arms around the girl.

"I'm glad that you're finally starting to get with the program when it comes to these hugs." She said in a joking manner.

"W-well, I figured that I might as well get used to it since we're uh...you know…."

"Good point."

After another few seconds, the two broke their embrace and gave each other one last smile before parting ways.

"I guess I'll see you on Monday."

"Yeah." Tokage nodded. "Do you mind if I call you this weekend?"

"Sure." He smiled.

"Cool." She grinned back. "Well, I better get going before those other two starting looking for us. Sorry again about that. I'll be sure to give Metalhead a piece of my mind later for screwing us over."

"It's fine, really?" The boy waved off.

"Whatever you say. Anyways, I'll catch you later."

"Bye." The boy said with a wave as the green haired girl made her way over to the train station.

Now that he was finally alone, Midoriya was able to release all the tension in his shoulders. Aside from a few mishaps, everything went surprisingly well. And judging by the fact that his date didn't immediately shoot him down when he threw out the idea of going out again sometime. It was safe to assume that Tokage was telling him the truth about enjoying herself as well and wasn't just being nice.

He tried his best to take his dad's advice and be a bit more forward. And that was definitely going to be a work in progress. But at least he took a step in the right direction. For now, the boy was happy with where they left off . He wasn't really sure if he could call this a relationship just yet, though. And he hoped that they could clear that up before something crazy happened. But he had a feeling that things were about to get really interesting between the two of them.

'_I should probably head back home. I didn't tell Mom where I was going today and she might start freaking out soon if I don't hurry back.'_ Was the last thing Midoriya said to himself before beginning the journey back home.

Along the way though, the boy just couldn't get rid of the grin that plastered itself onto his freckled face.

'_Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the next one.'_


	25. Training Camp: Day 1

"Thank you all for agreeing to meet up today." The ever-smiling Nezu said to the group of men sitting before him.

At the moment, Naomosa Tsukauchi, Toshinori Yagi, Gran Torino, Sir Nighteye and Miro Togata were all gathered in the office of the white furred mammal. It had been a couple of weeks since their last meeting, and no doubt there was much to discuss. Especially since most of them received word of this rendezvous on such short notice.

"I suggest that we start off with any new information concerning the League of Villains." Nezu motioned to both the detective and the '_jet'_ quirk user.

"There have been no major moves from them as of late." Tsukauchi began. "In fact, they've been very quiet since the USJ incident. The only leads that I've been able to track down is that they are allegedly in the market for some new members. A couple of low level thugs that've been taken into custody recently can testify to that."

"Considering how much of their forces that they lost in their last attack, it doesn't really surprise me." Yagi added.

"I haven't been able to dig up any reliable leads either." Gran Torino said.

The fact that there was practically nothing to go on concerning this group was less than ideal. With the capture and analysis of the creature called "Nomu", the police were able to at least confirm the identity of the man. But that was pretty much it. And with the fact that the thing had used multiple quirks during its battle with All Might at the USJ, it was obvious that it was a product related to some type of experiment connected to a certain individual.

"Well, it seems like there's nothing can be done about it now." Said Nezu as he took a sip of his tea. "We'll just have to keep our ears to the ground and stay vigilant."

"Agreed." Nighteye nodded before deciding to change topics. "Have we made any progress with that _other_ issue?"

Everyone in the room was able to pick up on what the '_foresight'_ user was implying. And without missing a beat, Gran Torino was the first one to speak up.

"I've been tailing the boy almost everyday since our last meeting." He began a bit reluctantly. The sheer thought of him having to follow around a sixteen year old didn't really sit right with the elderly hero. "Aside from a few interesting details, nothing he has done could be considered particularly strange."

"What do you mean?" Togata inquired.

"Well for starters...the kid apparently spends a lot of his free time cleaning up that old junkyard, Dagoba Beach. From what I've seen, he goes there to train his quirk. And he's actually doing a really good job at keeping the place clean if you ask me."

"Really?" A couple of the others raised their eyebrows.

"Anything else?" Nighteye asked the man. Other than a flimsy case of public quirk use, there was nothing of value to that information.

"The next thing I learned was that he actually volunteers at an orphanage for quirkless kids over in Saitama Prefecture. Him and another student of yours have gone there a few times in the last couple of weeks. And from what I've been able to gather, he goes to that place frequently. The last time he was there, I saw him cleaning and taking out the trash."

"Who was the other student?"

"A girl with green hair, I think I remember seeing her in the Sports Festival."

"You must mean Tokage." Togata interjected. "Hadou did say that the two of them are dating. And from what I've heard they spend a lot of time together."

In the back of his mind, the blonde haired student had a weird feeling about all of this. Based on everything that he knew about the green haired first year, Midoriya was nothing short of an upstanding student. He was a bit shy, generally well-liked, easy to get along with and apparently spent most of his time doing community service.

How someone like that could even be considered a possible villain was beyond him. But with everything that was going on, he understood that it could've been nothing more than an act. The '_permeation'_ quirk user had been ordered to not get too close to the boy for safety reasons. But something in his gut was leaning more towards Midoriya not being a threat. In fact, he actually wanted to have a real conversation with him sometime soon.

"So the boy is good at covering up his tracks. That still doesn't take away from the very real possibility that he's connected with All for One. For all we know, he could be keeping communications to a minimum and is laying low for the moment." Nighteye added on. "We could be making great lengths in this _investigation_ if you all would allow me to use my quirk on him."

Although most of the people in the room agreed with the '_foresight'_ quirk user, it was still too risky to approach the boy without any hard evidence against him. And like previously mentioned, coming into contact with a known associate of All Might might tip the boy off.

"I'm going to be honest here, I'm having a real hard time imagining that Midoriya is even working with the League." Togata finally voiced his opinion. "I mean, the guy doesn't exactly strike me as _villainous_ in any sort of way."

"Although I'm inclined to agree, the possibility is still on the table." Tsukauchi chimed in. "I looked over the boy's files and he was indeed quirkless up until last year. It was even confirmed on his medical records. As it stands, there's no way that he could have developed such a powerful quirk without coming into contact with All for One at some point. And I'm assuming that it was during the time period when he was missing."

"But do you really think he would get involved with someone like that?"

"Why wouldn't he?" Gran Torino asked. "I would imagine that a powerless teenager would jump at the chance to receive a quirk. Especially one as strong as his." The elderly man then gave a quick glance over to Yagi.

"Yes, I can agree with that." The emaciated blonde nodded. In truth, he couldn't really fault the boy if that was his reasoning for getting involved with that man. He himself practically leapt at the opportunity to receive '_One for All'_ from his master.

"In any case, we should continue to monitor the boy from a distance." Nezu finally spoke up. "Nothing he has done warrants any type of drastic action on our part. So there's no need to rush into this."

"Ridiculous…." Nighteye scoffed while folding his arms.

The rest of this impromptu meeting went on as one would expect. Aside from a few updates on how Togata was progressing with '_One for All' _and some news about the rise of new villain group in Tokyo, nothing of any real note was put out. Eventually, Gran Torino, Nighteye and Togata took their leave to go handle some other business. Leaving the other three men to go over some last minute details from Tsukauchi's investigation.

"So, how is that file of yours coming along, Tsukauchi-kun?" The unidentified mammal looked to the detective.

"I've pretty much completed it." The black haired man responded as he packed up his suitcase. "Like I mentioned earlier, things are pretty cut and dry. Although there was one detail that I did find interesting."

"And what is that?"

"The day that Midoriya went missing. It was also the same day of that "Sludge Villain" incident last year."

"Really?" Yagi said in a surprised tone. He remembered that particular incident quite well, even though most of the day was one giant blur.

Katsuki Bakugou, the boy who would later on become one of his students, ended up getting captured by the villain and was moments away from death before he stepped in and saved him. The heroes that were on the scene had irresponsibly decided to wait until someone else showed up with a "better" quirk for the situation and were about to let the boy take his last breath. With the last bit of his energy, the blonde haired man swooped in to save the boy. And aside from being rushed over the hospital to get his stomach pumped, Bakugou somehow made it out without any major injuries.

The funny thing was that Yagi could recall capturing that same villain barely thirty minutes before that entire event took place. In fact, he was about to turn him over to the police before running into-

"_...so no, I honestly don't think that you can become a hero without a quirk."_

"_It's not bad to have a dream, young man. Just...make sure your dreams are attainable...and realistic, understand?"_

A wave of foggy memories hit the blonde haired man like a freight train as images flashed across his mind. He didn't know what suddenly brought those on. But Yagi definitely remembered running into a scrawny boy in a black uniform and a plain face before coming up on that incident. But for the life of him, he couldn't remember what the child actually looked like.

"Is something wrong, Toshinori?" The detective asked, cutting off the man's train of thought.

"No…. I just remembered something about that incident. Nasty bit of business that was." The blonde haired man waved off with a grin.

"Oh, I see." The man shrugged.

'_Who was that boy?'_ The "_Symbol of Peace"_ thought to himself.

"In any case, you two should be on your way. Especially you Toshinori-kun, you should really be enjoying your days off when you can. Since the students are going to their summer training camp this week, you'll have more than enough time to unwind and focus on training Togata-kun." Nezu said with a smile on his face.

"Yes sir, you're right about that." Yagi laughed.

A few minutes later, both Tsukauchi and Yagi had left the office. Leaving Nezu to go over this latest bit of information himself. When it came to the curious case of Izuku Midoriya, the white furred mammal had a couple of details that piqued his interest. He didn't feel the need to bring these up to the group since any speculation would only bolster Nighteye's behavior even further. But after watching the boy's match against Katsuragi, his intuition was leading his mind in a certain direction.

Deciding to get the ball rolling on his own little side project, the unidentified mammal walked over to his phone and began typing into the keypad.

"_Nezu, you do realize that it's my day off, right? Don't tell me that Togata went and blew out his arm again."_ The voice of Recovery Girl said on the other side of the line.

"Why not at all!" He answered happily. "I simply have a question that someone with your expertise might be able to answer."

"_What is it?"_

* * *

The early morning drudge over to U.A. was not very enjoyable for Reiko Yanagi. The extended weekend, along with a lot of late night television, had completely thrown her off her sleeping schedule. The girl usually tried to be more responsible when it comes to stuff like that. But she had found an old era American cartoon that she really enjoyed and ended up bingeing it for nearly the entire weekend. The girl had spent well over twenty-three hours these last few days in front of her computer screen.

Although the closet otaku would never admit it out loud, something like this was the exact reason for her general appearance. Most people assumed that it was something related to her '_poltergeist'_ quirk. But in reality, the dark bags under her eyes, her constant slouch and the way her hands hung over her body was the product of years of sitting in front of her computer screen and surfing the internet for hours on end. That coupled with her naturally pale complexion and it was no wonder why people would constantly compare her to a ghost.

After getting off the train, it didn't take long for the grey haired girl to arrive at the school. By sheer coincidence she ended up getting there at the exact same time as the other telekinetic students in her class.

"Hello, Yanagi-san." Midoriya greeted the girl.

"Hey…" She groggily droned out.

"Are you okay?" The boy immediately asked in a concerned tone. Although it was difficult to really gauge the girl's emotions due to her stoic nature. Recently, Midoriya had been able to pick up on subtle cues that his classmate gave off that usually let him know how she was doing.

"Yeah, just tired is all. I...had a bit of a late night." She answered in her usually stoic manner. "What about you? Has your body recovered yet from the exam?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "I was able to use my quirk yesterday without any issues. But I didn't try anything too crazy."

"That's good." She gave a quick nod before the two made their way through the gate and over to the parking lot where they were all told to meet up. Yanagi herself didn't know what to expect for this training camp. The only thing that Kan had told them was that they were going to be focusing on training their quirks.

"So...what do you think we'll be doing for this camp?" The green haired boy asked.

"Knowing Kan-sensei, we're probably just going to be practicing with our quirks for most of the time. I imagine that we're going to be doing a lot of tasks related to our individual powers."

"Yeah, I can see that." The boy gave out a slight laugh. "We'll probably be partnered up together again if that happens."

It would be hard for Yanagi to disagree with that. Ever since coming to U.A. the two of them had pretty much been considered a package deal when it came to training. Even Honenuki made a few jokes about how they're 1-B's "Dynamic Duo". It did make sense though, they had the same quirk and they compliment each other's weaknesses pretty well. It wouldn't surprise her if the two spent most of the time training together as opposed to everyone else. Logically, it would make the most sense.

'_I wonder if he'll show me how to do that "Hellstorm" move that Blizzard taught him.'_ The gray haired teen wondered as they continued on their journey to the other side of campus.

* * *

"Alright! Now that everyone's here, we need to start loading our bags onto the bus. The quicker that we get this done, the sooner we can leave. So let's make it snappy!" Kendou announced to her classmates.

Surprisingly, all of the 1-B students complied with the order and began loading their luggage onto the shelves. Even Midoriya and Yanagi had volunteered to use their quirks to make the process go by a lot faster.

"I must say Kendou-san, I'm actually surprised at how well you and your classmates work together." Yaoyorozu told the girl as class 1-A also began loading their bags onto the bus. Albeit, in a slightly less organized fashion than the other class.

"Well, everyone in our class is pretty easy to work with. So it makes things way less difficult. Even Kamakiri-kun knows when to tone it down." The orange haired teen joked.

"Hey, I heard that!" The '_razor sharp'_ user shouted from the other end of the pile.

"Well, _our's_ is the superior class. Of course you'd be astonished by our stellar teamwork!" Monoma interjected in slightly smug tone as he casually avoided doing any of the actual work.

"Less talk, more moving Monoma-san!" Kendou scowled at the '_copy'_ quirk user.

Another ten minutes or so passed by before the two hero course classes were done loading up the buses. Everyone simply stood around and chatted amongst themselves for a bit before Kan and Aizawa finally made their appearance. However, the two teachers were not alone. With them was a familiar looking student with wild purple haired who looked as though he desperately needed a nap.

"Good, you all managed to get ready before we showed up." Aizawa lazily groaned out before pointing to the student. "As many of you probably remember, this is Hitoshi Shinsou. He'll be joining us for the week. For him, this training camp will be used to determine whether or not he'll be able to join the hero course."

"Oh...so he's Iida's replacement?" Tetsutetsu asked out loud.

"Dude, shut the hell up!" Tokage was quick to elbow the silver haired teen in arm for his outburst. Even though it was plainly obvious that it was true, there was no point in saying it out loud. The green haired girl then looked over to a few of the 1-A students who had some strange looks on their faces. More specifically, Uraraka who seemed to tense up at the mention of Iida's name.

"Go ahead and introduce yourself." The nocturnal hero continued.

"Let me be clear." The purple haired student started. "I'm not here to make friends with you people. My only goal is to prove my worth and make it into the hero course. Since there's an open spot for the taking, this is my chance to get in. If any of you have a problem with that, then get over it."

"_I see he hasn't lost that smug attitude of his."_ Tokage whispered to everyone around her. "_It's a good thing that we all finally know what his quirk is."_

"Indeed." Tsunotori nodded.

"For now he'll be working with 1-A, but expect him to bounce around between classes while the camp is going on. You can all talk about it later, hurry up and start getting onto the buses so that we can leave."

"Yes sir!" The students said in unison.

Tokage shared a quick look with Midoriya before grabbing him by the arm and pulling him towards the bus. "I hope you weren't expecting to sit with anyone else." She smirked.

"No, n-not at all." The boy smiled back.

"Good, because I don't know how long this bus ride will be and you're going to be my pillow just in case I fall asleep."

"Setsuna, please try to refrain from doing any unholy acts. We are going to be in a confined space after all." Shiozaki added on from a few steps behind them.

"Seriously..." A few other students deadpanned.

"Tch, you people are no fun!" The '_lizard tail splitter' _user scoffed at the vine haired girl. "Besides, what's wrong with committing a little _sin_ here and there?"

All Shiozaki could do was gasp at the girl's words. Earning a not-so-subtle laugh from Tokage and a lot of not-so-subtle blushing from Midoriya.

"How can you say such perverse things with no shame?" Shiozaki then asked.

"Oh man, I can already tell that this week is going to be a blast! Don't worry Ibara, you've got seven straight days of pure and unadulterated Tokage to look forward to. And I promise to _not_ pull my punches." Tokage began patting the girl on the shoulder while laughing.

All the vine haired girl could do was say a silent prayer before boarding the bus along with Tsunotori. With her first bit of fun for the day finally out of the way, Tokage went right back to her previously scheduled flirting and once again grabbed Midoriya by the arm.

"_Oh yeah, this is going to be one fun week!"_

* * *

"Are we there yet!?" Awase groaned from his spot next to Tetsutetsu.

At the moment, the 1-B bus was a flurry of activity. Everyone was either talking, sleeping or occupying their time with their phones. For the most part, the students were just happy to have the opportunity to even go on the field trip. Especially the four that ended up failing their exams, Tsuburaba, Kuroiro, Komori and Bondo. Needless to say, they were a bit less cheery than the others. But aside from that, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

"Quiet, dumbass. I'm trying to enjoy this song!" Kamakiri responded from his seat towards the back.

"Dude, we've been stuck on this damn thing for the last three hours...I'm dying over here." The headband wearing teen shot back.

"Well, complaining about it won't help." Said Shoda a few seats ahead.

"Dude, I don't even see the 1-A bus anymore."

"Alright, settle down everyone!" Kan ordered the slightly unruly class of teenagers as he turned around in his seat. "We'll be there in less than five minutes, so get ready. Like I said last week, we're hitting the ground running as soon as we show up."

With that confirmation, Midoriya decided to go ahead and wake up the green haired girl that was currently sleeping on his shoulder. True to her word, Tokage didn't even make it a full hour into the bus ride before passing out. Midoriya didn't mind, especially since the ride over was way more quiet than he expected. And it helped that he was able to get an hour of sleep in himself along the way.

"Setsuna, it's time to get up. We're almost at the camp." The boy said softly while giving her a light shake.

"Ten more minutes…." The girl groaned out while digging into his shoulder a bit more.

'_So cute….'_ Midoriya said to himself. "We'll be there in less than five. Kan-sensei said that we need to get ready."

"Ugh...fine." She replied before sitting up and stretching her arms out. The girl couldn't help but let out a loud yawn as she felt her joints pop. "Y'know Izuku...if this whole hero thing doesn't work out, you've got some real potential as one of those professional cuddlers for women who can't get a boyfriend."

"T-thanks." The boy blushed as the weird compliment.

"Wow, you haven't even been awake for a full minute and you're already flirting." Kendou joked.

"Wait, that's actually a thing?" Tsunotori asked. The American girl had heard about that being an actual line of work in Japan. But she assumed that it was just a joke.

Sure enough, less than five minutes passed before the bus came to a halt in front of a decent sized lake in the middle of a heavily wooded area. The only visible structure that they could see was a small shack on the shoreline. As the students departed they couldn't help but notice that the 1-A bus was nowhere to be found. They had all left together, but at some point they must've either gotten separated or lost.

"Sensei, what became of 1-A?" Shishida asked what most of the others seemed to be thinking.

"Me and Aizawa decided that we'd do things a bit differently on the first day." The blood themed hero explained. "While he's putting his class through whatever he's got planned. We're going to be doing a bit of a team building exercise." He continued. In reality, he wasn't really a fan of Aizawa's idea to have all of the students run through the "Forest of Beasts" for damn near the entire day. So the two agreed to split up and handle their classes differently.

"So what are we gonna be doing?" Asked Tetsutetsu.

"That's an awesome question!" A very peppy voice said from behind them.

The group of students all turned their heads and were met with the sight of a large man with black paint over his eyes and a woman with emerald green hair. They were both dressed in what looked like cheerleading uniforms, except in one was wearing brown and the other was wearing yellow.

"Who are you guys?"

"They're the Wild Pussycats!" Midoriya suddenly blurted out. "They're a hero team that specializes in mountain rescues. This is Ragdoll and Tiger!"

"Oh yeah, I've heard of these guys before." Tokage piggybacked off the boy's explanation.

"That's right!" The green haired cat themed hero said happily.

"The Wild Pussycats own the land that we'll be using for the training camp." Kan began explaining. "They'll also be helping us supervise and train you all for the entire week."

"Cool."

"While you're with us, we'll be sure to beat you maggots to a pulp and push you to surpass your limits!" The man now identified as Tiger slammed a fist into his open palm.

"Did he just say that he's going to beat us to a pulp?" Kaibara nervously asked the students standing around him. It was bad enough that the guy was already pretty big. But the ominous aura surrounding his body just made him that much more intimidating.

Hoping to get everyone back on track before things got too out of hand, Kan decided to get the party started. "Like I said, they'll be helping us supervise your training. Which includes today. As I'm sure all of you have noticed, the only thing here is this giant lake. And there's a reason for that."

"And what is that, sensei?" Kendou asked.

"That's because the lodge that you kittens will be staying at is actually twenty kilometers...that way!" Ragdoll pointed a paw over to the mountain in the far distance.

"What!"

"That's right. You students have to traverse the terrain to make it to the lodge."

"It's gonna take us hours to get there!" Tsuburaba whined.

"But wait, there's more!"

"Of course there is…." Yanagi deadpanned.

"Along the way, there are five separate obstacles that you students need to overcome as a class. Each obstacle is focused around rescuing a mannequin from a specific type of danger." Tiger announced.

"That sounds easy enoug-"

"The kicker is that after you rescue them, you lot have to carry all of the mannequins with you for the rest of the journey!"

"Fuck!" Awase threw his head back in defeat.

Although it was definitely going to be annoying, carrying the mannequins wasn't going to be too difficult. There were several students in their class that could carry a significant amount of weight for longer periods of time. Midoriya, Yanagi, Shiozaki, Kendou and Shishida being the prime candidates for this. But the students had a feeling that the exercise was going to be far more complicated than that.

"We'll be throwing a few curveballs at you during these exercises, so stay on your toes. For now, go ahead and get changed into your gym uniforms and get back out here. Try to remember, this is your time. The longer you take to finish the less free time you'll have at the end of today's training." Kan said.

"Yes, sir!"

* * *

After getting changed into their gym uniforms, the students all gathered around their instructors and waited for their training to begin. They had no clue what to expect aside from that it was going to be rescue oriented. But knowing Vlad King, he probably had something interesting in mind.

"Alright, here's your first trial for the day!" The blood themed hero announced. "This one is going to be pretty easy, but they'll get progressively harder as the day goes on."

"What are we gonna do?" Tokage asked.

"Aquatic rescue!" Ragdoll interjected. "In the middle of the lake, there is a mannequin that will simulate a person stranded in the water. Your job is to go out and bring him back to safety."

The group looked behind the woman to see her partner standing in a small boat in the middle of the lake. The man was waving the mannequin in the air above his head and mildly flexing.

'_This will be a piece of cake. We'll pretty much only need Izuku for this one.'_ Tokage thought. Unfortunately for her, Kan was already a few steps ahead of her.

"However...flying is not allowed. If I see anyone floating in the air, you guys will receive a penalty that the entire class will have to suffer through."

'_It makes sense that he would say something like that. These aren't supposed to be easy exercises.'_ Midoriya said to himself. In truth, he thought that he would be able to handle this one task in less than a couple of minutes.

"You guys can sort out your plan...if you think you'll have the time."

"What do you mean by that?" Awase asked.

"She means that the exercise has already started." Kan added.

"What do you me-"

"Yawara-chan, do it!" Ragdoll cupped her gloved hand over her mouth and shouted towards her partner. Without missing a beat, the muscular threw the mannequin up into the air with an impressive amount of distance. The 1-B students all watched in awe for a moment before the training tool landed in the water.

***Splash!***

"I suggest you all hurry up and go save that injured person. A landing like that probably knocked them out cold." Kan said with a satisfied smirk on his face.

"What?! We don't even get time to prepare?" Said Tsuburaba.

"That's a part of being a hero. Situations like this come at you at the drop of a hat." The man replied.

"That's some bull-"

"Worry about it later." Kendou cut him off. "Quick, who's the best swimmer out here?"

Without so much as a thought, Midoriya wasted no time in jumping into action. The boy didn't even consult his classmates before running towards the water and jumping into the lake. Although it was only an exercise, Midoriya knew that he should take stuff like this seriously. He wanted to be a rescue specialist after all. So he needed to make sure that he acted quickly in times of an emergency.

'_I guess now is as good a time as any to test out that theory of mine.'_ The boy thought before activating his quirk on himself.

He never really had a reason to try this up until now, but Midoriya had always wondered if he could use his quirk underwater in the same way that he could while in the air. A few weeks back, he saw a few clips from some old era American movie about a man from an underwater city. While watching it, he realized that the way they zipped through the water was the same as flying. And wondered if the same principles would apply to him.

With no more time to waste, the '_telekinesis'_ user focused his power and began zooming through the water in the direction that he saw the mannequin land. What he didn't plan on however, was the fact that in his hasty attempt to get to the "person" in need, he didn't take a big enough breath before jumping in.

Seeing as he didn't have a lot of time, the boy quickly "swam" up to surface before poking his head above the water and taking a deep breath and going back down.

"Wait, how did he get over there so fast?" Honenuki wondered.

'_I guess he can use his quirk underwater too.'_ Tokage smirked. She forgets sometimes just how versatile a quirk like telekinesis is.

Not even a few seconds later, Midoriya finally located his target. Thankfully the water was clear enough for him to see the mannequin that was slowly sinking below the surface with each passing second. The boy quickly used his quirk to grab hold of the thing and brought it to him. However, the second that the faux-person was in his arms, he couldn't help but notice how heavy the thing was.

'_This thing must weigh at least a hundred kilograms.'_

With the mannequin now secured, Midoriya shot back up to the surface to once again catch his breath. In the distance, the other 1-B students let out a collective sigh of relief at the sight of their green haired classmate's face.

It didn't take long for the boy to make it back to the shoreline and the moment he was back on dry land, Midoriya was met with cheers from his classmates.

"Midoriya, that was awesome!" Awase complimented the boy.

"I didn't know you can use your quirk underwater like that." Kendou asked.

"Y-yeah, me neither. I...didn't really think that all the way through." The boy bashfully admitted.

"Damn, this thing is heavy." Said Tetsutetsu as he inspected the mannequin.

To his left, Midoriya hadn't noticed the borderline predatory look that Tokage was giving him. The image of him standing there in a soaking wet uniform that provided just the right amount of eye-candy was already good enough for the girl. But the way his sopping wet, curly hair was draped over his face was a little too much for her to handle at the moment.

'_He ain't the only one getting wet right now. Damn, if only he took his top off before jumping in the water.'_ Tokage smirked, reminding herself to find an excuse to get him out of his shirt as soon as possible.

"Yes, yes, that was a fine job Midoriya." Kan interrupted the students with a few sarcastic claps of his hands. "However...as I mentioned before, these are supposed to be team exercises. And since you guys failed to work as a team, you have to face the consequences."

"Huh?" A few students said with confused looks.

"Since Midoriya was the only one to save the mannequin, that means that he has to sit out for the next two exercises. Oh, and one of you will have to carry the mannequin not him." The blood themed hero explained with a slight smirk.

"What?!"

"Oh come on, sensei! Most of us were useless in that situation. On top of that, none of us have aquatic quirks!" Kamakiri immediately began complaining.

"That doesn't excuse the rest of you standing around and doing nothing while your classmate did all the work. At the very least, you could've tried to provide some assistance for his return!" Ragdoll cheerily interjected while pointing a finger and laughing at their expressions.

None of the students had a good enough response to the critique. In truth, all of them were pretty certain that Midoriya could handle the situation by himself. But the fact that none of them were as fast as him when it came to both reacting and getting to mannequin made them pause. But now that they were short one of their most powerful students, it would only make the exercise that much harder.

'_I was planning on taking Midoriya out of the equation at some point depending on how he did. But this just makes it easier. These guys need to learn how to work around their own shortcomings a lot more. Especially the ones with combat oriented quirks.'_ Kan thought

Hoping to bring the now deflated morale of the group back up, Kendou addressed her class. "C'mon guys, we got this. Even if Midoriya-kun is out of play for a while, we're still more than capable of handling things. With our combination of quirks, this will be a piece of cake."

"Itsuka's right, there's nineteen of us. We got this in the bag!" Tokage piggyback with a confident thumbs-up.

"Oh yeah, Monoma's also not allowed to use Midoriya's quirk for the duration of the exercise." Kan added on while giving a sharp gaze over to the blonde haired student who was casually making his way over to Midoriya.

'_Well, there goes my plan out the window…' _The '_copy'_ quirk user sighed. On top of never getting the chance to actually copy the green's haired boy's quirk. Monoma knew that his power was way too useful for stuff like this. Luckily their teacher hadn't said anything about Yanagi's power being off limits as well.

"Alright! Now that we have the first exercise out of the way, let's move onto the next one!" Ragdoll cheered before marching into the treeline.

"What's next?" Tokage asked the pro heroine.

"You'll have to wait and see! But it's going to be something particularly entertaining...for us."

'_I have a feeling that we're not going to like this at all.'_ The students collectively groaned as they walked towards their fate.

* * *

_~Five Hours Later~_

The moment the students stepped into the giant clearing in front of the lodge, they were absolutely exhausted. When Kan the Pussycats told them that they were going to be increasing the intensity with each exercise, they were expecting a gradual incline. Not leaps and bounds above the previous one.

"Someone get this damn thing off of me, please." Tetsutetsu pleaded as he dropped the ground with a 150kg mannequin still on his back. He had been carrying the thing for the last forty-five minutes and his legs were about to give out.

"I would totally help you out there Metalhead, but I'm a bit _short handed_ at the moment." Tokage weakly chuckled while waving around two nubs where her hands were supposed to be. The girl lost them about two hours ago after a slight mishap when her and Yanagi attempted to hold up some boulders together.

"I'm sorry Tokage-chan, I thought that those rocks were within my weight limit. But they were more dense than I imagined." The grey haired teen apologized in her usual montine voice while propping herself up on Kendou's shoulder. Her head was throbbing and she had been using her quirk nonstop for the last few hours.

"It's fine." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user waved off.

A few seconds later, Midoriya walked out from the tree line looking a lot more tired than usual. Not only was the boy carrying two of the mannequins by himself. But he was also transporting Kuroiro and Shoda. The latter was too exhausted to move thanks to overusing his quirk during the last exercise.

"Seriously... who's idea was it to have a simulated rock slide as our last obstacle?" Kamakiri droned out.

The only person who looked somewhat okay was Bondo. But since no one could really tell what the gentle giant of the class was thinking due to him not having an actual face, it was hard to say. On top of that, his skin was drier than usual after using his quirk to help rebuild a destroyed bridge.

"_My feet are killing me!" _Tsunotori groaned in her native English.

"Where are Komori-chan and Fukidashi-kun?" Kendou looked around the group of tired teenagers.

"We're...over...here…" The short brunette girl huffed out as her and Fukidashi finally crossed the tree line. The two of them working together to transport another mannequin.

"It's messed up how you made the two smallest people in your class carry the heaviest mannequin!" Ragdoll laughed while waving a paw at Kan.

'_Honestly, I did that just to be funny.'_ The blood themed hero silently chuckled.

Once everyone was finally accounted for, the students were given a quick five minute break to catch their breath and rest their feet. Once that was over, everyone gathered around their homeroom teacher and two new instructors.

"I must say, you maggots got here sooner than I expected. I was pretty sure that we wouldn't get here until sundown." Tiger complimented the class. Sundown was still a good two and a half hours away, so there was a lot of time left in the day.

"Indeed." Kan interjected. "The purpose of us dragging you through this hell was to get a feel for what this camp is going to be like. But mainly because I wanted you all to focus on how you use your quirks. Like I said at the start of the year, you have to learn how to think outside of the box and be able to adapt to any situation that comes."

"I thought it was just to watch us suffer…." Kaibara groaned from his spot on the ground while clutching his still sore fingers.

"In any case, you all did well. Which means that you have the rest of the afternoon to rest and relax." Everyone's spirits were lifted ever so slightly at that announcement.

"Your classmate's still aren't here yet, so you'll have to wait until they show up to have dinner. But that means that you kittens don't have to share the showers or the hotsprings with them!" Ragdoll then explained with a smile on her face.

'_Hot Springs?'_ Tokage's ears perked up at the mention of the word before darting her eyes over to Midoriya. Needless to say, the girl was having some less than appropriate thoughts at the prospect of finally seeing the boy without a shirt on.

"Ragdoll-san, the hot springs are separated by gender, correct?" Shiozaki immediately raised her hand.

"Of course!"

"Fuck…" The green haired girl cursed under her breath.

"For now, all of you go grab your bags from the front of the lodge and get cleaned up. We'll call you when it's time to eat."

With no hesitation, the students of class 1-B stood up on their shaky legs and made the drudge over to retrieve their belongings. Deciding to have a little bit of fun with this situation, Tokage walked over to Midoriya and jumped on the boy's back.

"S-Setsuna, w-w-what are you doing?" The blushing teen asked.

"Too tired to walk, need a piggyback ride." The girl replied with a slight smirk. "Also...I'm going to need some help carrying my stuff since I kinda don't have hands right now."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense. Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, I just need to get some calories in me to help speed up the regeneration. I'm running on empty right now but I should be good by the morning."

"That's good."

"In the meantime...that also means that I'm going to have some trouble when it comes to showering. You wanna give me a _hand_ with that?"

Midoriya's face suddenly heated up at the implication of her words. They may have been officially dating now, but he was certain that he would never get used to how easily the girl could say stuff like that out loud. Just when the boy was about to fumble through his response, Shiozaki came to his rescue.

"There will be no indecency while we're here at this camp!" The blushing vine haired girl stated.

"What do you mean, Ibara? I was just going to ask Izuku to join me in the show-" Tokage's mouth was suddenly covered by one of the girl's vines.

"I'm too tired to deal with this." Yanagi droned out while using her quirk to pick up both her bags and Tokage's. "You and the boy's go on ahead. I'll make sure that Tokage-chan doesn't try to peek at you guys."

"You people are no fun!" The green haired teen huffed out in annoyance before acquiescing to her classmates and joining the rest of the girl to make the journey over to their assigned room. Leaving the boys to do the same.

* * *

After a much needed shower and soak in the hot springs, the girls of 1-B were all chilling out in their room. The sun was beginning to set and a few of them were starting to get more than a bit hungry, Tokage in particular. Because of the lack of sufficient calories, the process for her regeneration was going at a snail's pace. Thankfully the girl had the foresight to pack some granola bars in her bags before leaving just in case something like this happened. But even that wasn't enough to help her out.

Right as the girls were in the middle of a conversation about what they were going to be doing for the duration of the camp, the door slid open to reveal the girls of class 1-A. And judging by their looks, they must've just gotten back from whatever particular brand of hell that Aizawa had put them through.

"Wow...you guys look like shit." Tokage said in a joking fashion.

"Wait, are we going to be sharing this room?" Yaoyorozu asked, her voice sounded dry and Tokage could swear that the girl was thinner than usual.

"Yeah." Kendou answered. "Since there's only thirteen of us, we'll all be rooming together. And the boys have their own room. But Ragdoll did say that this was the biggest one."

"Oh, I see."

"What took you so long? We've been waiting hours for you to show up?"

"We just spent the last eight hours fighting giant dirt monsters." Ashido replied while holding her wrists.

"That sucks."

"What about you guys?"

"Kan-sensei put us through a bunch of rescue exercises that were way too difficult for us to handle properly. But we did manage to make it back a few hours ago."

"Lucky…" Jiro mumbled out.

"Judging by the fact that Tokage-san doesn't have any hands, I don't think that "lucky" would be the right word to use, gero." The frog themed girl with the scar on her face bluntly told the purple haired rocker.

The girls stood around and talked for a few minutes before Pixie-Bob, another member of the Wild Pussycats, told them that dinner was ready. With a wide grin and an almost empty stomach, Tokage nearly charged out of the room and made a beeline straight for the dining hall for some much needed grub.

* * *

"Yo Midoriya-kun, it's nice of you to finally join us!" Honenuki waved to the green haired teen who just walked into the room.

"What's that desired to mean?" Tsunotori asked the lipless teen.

"Midoriya didn't join the rest of us in the hot springs. He just went straight to the showers and took a nap." Awase clarified.

"Sorry, I was just really tired." The boy lied. Although it was true that he did take a nap after his midday shower. The reason why he didn't join the rest of the boys in the hot springs was because he didn't want to run the risk of any of them seeing his scars. The only person who was able to pick up on this was Yanagi.

"It's cool."

"Izuku, get over here! I need you to feed me!" Tokage blurted out loud enough for a few 1-A students to turn their heads in curiosity.

"What?!"

"I don't have hands right now, dude. I need your help." The girl waved her nubs in the air above her head.

In all fairness, Tokage did have a point. Without her hands, the girl wouldn't be able to eat. And it was a hero's duty to help someone in need. Especially if that someone was your girlfriend(?). Now that he thought about it, the two of them never did get around to defining exactly what the nature of their relationship was. Maybe they should handle that sometime soon.

After letting out an embarrassed sigh, Midoriya made his way over to the table. Aside from Tokage herself. Kendou, Tetsutetsu and Yanagi were all sitting with her. Generally speaking, the two classes had decided to stick together instead of intermingling that much. The only really oddballs were Todoroki and Shinso. Both of them sitting in rather secluded areas of the dining hall away from everyone else.

Once he sat down, Tokage wasted no time in sliding a bowl of fried rice in front of him while giving the boy a devious look. Obviously the girl was enjoying his embarrassment over the matter, but Midoriya couldn't quite bring himself to turn her down.

The green haired teen looked around for a moment before spotting a spoon in the tray of utensils at the center of the table. Without so much as thought, the boy used his quirk to lift the spoon, scoop up some rice and levitate it over to the girl's mouth. What Midoriya wasn't expecting, however, was for Tokage to give him an annoyed look and pout at him.

"You're a dork." She shook her head and huffed.

"What?"

"I didn't mean for you to use your quirk to do it." She explained as if it was the obvious thing in the world.

"Oh…" The now blushing teen realized what the girl meant.

"You're lucky that you're cute." Tokage began laughing before the unmistakable sound of her stomach grumbling drew in everyone's attention. "We'll worry about it later. For now, bring on the grub!"

Near the front of the room, Aizawa, Kan and the rest of the pro heroes were sitting at their own table and enjoying their meal. They had already worked out the schedule for the next few days, so there was really nothing else to talk about besides regular everyday stuff.

"Aren't you going to do anything about those two?" Aizawa lazily looked to Kan.

"No." The man casually replied while taking a sip of his tea.

"Why not?"

"I don't really see a point." The grey haired man shrugged. "It's not against the rules for teenagers to date. On top of that, they _are_ two of my better and more well behaved students. So I don't really see a problem with it."

"I see." The back haired man simply replied. He himself thought it was irrational to allow students to openly engage in relationships like that. But then again, Kan did have a point. To his knowledge, Tokage and Midoriya were two of the top students in 1-B. In any case, it wasn't his class and by extension it wasn't his problem. So the nocturnal hero decided to drop it.

* * *

Later that night after everyone finally managed to eat and take part in the hot springs, the girls of 1-A and 1-B were all packed inside their assigned room. Like previously mentioned, they were all going to be living together during the training camp. Which gave the students plenty of time to mingle with each other.

"Man...talk about one hell of a day." Tokage stretched out her arms. Now that she had a sufficient amount of calories in her system, her regeneration was moving faster than it was earlier. The bottom portion of her palms were already starting to form.

"I'll say. My hands still haven't fully recovered from earlier." Kendou agreed.

"I still can't believe you guys had to spend the entire day fighting those dirt monsters. That must've been rough." Said Komori, the shorter girl with brown hair styled into a bob-cut that covered both of her eyes

"It was." Uraraka nodded.

"Well, at least we now get a chance to unwind before tomorrow."

"Certainly." Shiozaki agreed.

"I wonder what they're going to have us do?"

"Whatever it is, it's probably going to be brutal."

"You can count on that. In the meantime, why don't we take our minds off of that and have a little girl talk?" Ashido gave the girls a wide grin.

"I don't like the way you said that…" Jiro scowled at the pink skinned girl.

"C'mon, this is the first time that all of us are together like this outside of class. It'll be fun!"

"So, what did you want to talk about?"

"Boys, obviously!" The _''acid'_ quirk user proclaimed as she stood up from her futon.

"Here we go…." Kendou deadpanned.

"Now we're talking!" Tokage also stood up on top of her futon. More than happy to have this particular kind of conversation. "So, which guys do you think are the hottest?"

"Do we really have to answer that?"

"This is ridiculous." Yanagi stoically said while scrolling through her phone.

"C'mon Ghosty, what's the harm?" Tokage smiled at the girl and threw her arm over her shoulder. "You're a hormonally challenged girl just like the rest of us, right? Which guy do you think is the most attractive? I'm _dying_ to know the answer to this."

"In order of general attractiveness, I would have to say Kaibara-kun, Awase-kun, Midoriya-kun, Monoma-kun and Honenuki-kun are the five most attractive boys in our class."

…

…

…

Silence fell among the students as everyone gawked at the grey haired teen. In response, Yanagi simply looked around the room and waited for a reply.

"Wow…" Tokage blinked in surprise. "I wasn't really expecting you to just come out and say it like that."

"What would be the point in lying about it?" A lazily blue eye glanced back at her.

"You are seriously one tough nut to crack." The green haired girl shook her head before moving on.

"Forget all that, I want the details and Tokage and Midoriya." Ashido cooed along with Hagakure. "Are you two offically a couple or what? Because him feeding you in the dining hall earlier was the cutest thing on earth."

"Something like that…." The girl smirked while pretending to be coy about the situation.

* * *

_~Meanwhile, in the Class 1-B boy's room….~_

"Alright Midoriya, what's your fucking secret?!" Awase asked the green haired boy.

"My what?" A very confused Midoriya looked to his classmate for an explanation.

"Don't try and act dumb! I'm onto you and your little game, you douche. How come you're always surrounded by attractive women?"

"What?!"

"Y'know...Awase does have a point." Tsuburaba joined in. "You are quite the ladies man, dude."

To say that Midoriya was perplexed would be putting mildly. He honestly had no clue where any of this was coming from. "Guys, what are you even talking about?"

"Don't give us that shit! You and Tokage are obviously together. You and Yanagi talk and hang out _all_ the time. Plus that hot third year girl with the huge boobs apparently has taken an interest in you. And don't even get me started on Blizzard..." The headband wearing teen began listing off his "evidence".

"Dude, that may or may not be his older sister...gross!" A chuckling Honenuki chimed in from the other side of the room while very much enjoying this conversation.

"I'm telling you bro, it's the freckles. Chicks dig that shit." Kamakiri decided to put in his two cents.

Now that he was fully committed to this act, Awase walked across the room directly to Midoriya and placed his hands on the boy's shoulders. He even took a few seconds to stare into his eyes and pause for dramatic effect.

"Tell us you son of a bitch! How do you do it? Knowledge is meant to be shared, not hoarded!" The '_weld'_ quirk user began shaking him. "What are you, some kind of generic anime harem protagonist?"

'_Ah, so this is what it's like to have sleepovers.'_ Midoriya thought as he tried to come up with a way out of his comically dreadful situation.

* * *

In a seedy bar in the middle of Kamino ward, a certain group of individuals were gathered around a table in the middle of the room. These men and women were carefully going over their plan for events yet to come.

"Twice's clone just checked in with us not too long ago and confirmed that the brats were hiding out in some lodge in the middle of Akita Prefecture." Tomura Shigaraki, a young man with sky blue hair and dry skin announced to the group. By a sheer stroke of luck, one of his newest party members just so happened to spot a bus containing their current quest objectives and sent one of his clones to tail them.

"So tell me again why we're going through the trouble of snatching up a couple of kids." A man with black hair and scars all over his body asked. Wondering what the point of all this was.

"Our goal is to deal a blow to hero society as a whole. And what better way to do that than to turn a couple of top hero prospects to our side?"

"And what if this doesn't pan out the way you want it to?" The scarred man rebutted.

"Then we'll just kill them. Either way, the public will lose its faith in the disgusting institution that it clings to so dearly."

"Fine." The man replied. "And after we prove ourselves on this little kidnapping job of yours, you'll introduce us to Stain, right?"

"Of course." Shigaraki lied under the dismembered hand that he was using to mask his face. Ever since that business in Hosu, his "League of Villains" had been attached to that lunatic bastard known as the 'Hero Killer'. In truth, the pale man wanted nothing more than to turn that asshole into dust. But using his name to gather more NPCs was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

"Oh, this sounds so much fun. I can't wait to start slicing people up!" The psychotic blonde girl with yellow eyes cheered with a sadistic smile on her face.

"So when do we start?"

"We're still waiting on that support gear from Giran to get finished. It will be done by tomorrow night. The attack itself will be the day after tomorrow. On top of that, we're waiting on a few more members to join our party."

"Fine." The scarred man nodded.

"Does all of this sound okay to you, Sensei?" Shigaraki then turned toward the television monitor in the back of the room.

"It sounds wonderful, Tomura." A cold and sinister voice replied in an amused tone. His apprentice may still have been a bit rough around the edges and needed proper guidance. But he was coming along quite well. His earlier defeat at the hands of All Might had really lit a fire in his soul. "However, might I make a small request?"

"What is it?"

"In addition to capturing Ragdoll of the Wild Pussycats, I would like some time with Izuku Midoriya once your plan succeeds. There's a certain matter concerning him that I wish to attend to."

"Alright." The '_decay' _quirk user nodded. He learned a long time ago that his Sensei always had some kind of nefarious scheme in the works. And that it's better to not ask questions. As long as he got what he wanted, there was nothing to worry about.

"Excellent…" The man behind the screen smiled at this very fortunate turn of events.

* * *

**Author's Notes: I'm back! Sorry about the "late" update, but work/life has been pretty hectic lately (Also, I've really gotten into "Black Clover" lately). On top of that, I've had some seriously bad writer's block when it comes to this story. Mainly because I didn't know what to have the 1-B students do for their first day of training. But this was what I decided on. I honestly just wanted the chance to introduce Midoriya using his quirk to "swim". Which may or may not come up again in a later part of the story. **

**1\. I've decided to extend the training camp by one day. This will be used to build up a few things that will happen in the next few chapters and later on in the fic. I honestly want to hurry up and get this part of the story over with. But I don't want to rush it. Plus I have a pretty big moment coming that I hinted at in this chapter. **

**2\. For all those wondering why the League hasn't been present in my story up until now...to be honest I have a hard time writing their characters, especially Shigaraki. I think that his character doesn't make sense in canon. As someone who's been under AfO's wing for the last 14+ years, he's way too childish and idiotic. I have to actively try and not give him an intelligence boost whenever he shows up in my fics. They won't have a huge role in the overall story. But it will obviously be a significant one. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a review/comment.**


	26. Training Camp: Day 2

The early morning wake up call courtesy of Mandalay was definitely not what the students were expecting to hear before the crack of dawn on their first full day of training. For most of them, their daily routines didn't require them to get up at such an ungodly hour. But with the promise of severe consequences for showing up late, the hero course first years had very little trouble finding the motivation to get out of bed.

After he was done brushing his teeth and putting on his uniform, Midoriya hazily strolled over to the front of the lodge. The green haired boy himself was a bit more used to waking up early thanks to all his time training at Dagobah Beach. But even he was having trouble getting himself going.

By the time he made it outside of the lodge, Midoriya took a moment to take in the early morning view. Overall, the place was absolutely stunning. The trees were a beautiful shade of summer green and the mountain air felt fresh in his lungs. It had been a few years since he'd last been outside of the city and he was grateful to be able to experience something like this.

"Midoriya." A calm voice called out from behind, slightly startling him. The boy then turned around only to be met with the sight of the heterochromatic teenager known as Shouto Todoroki.

"Todoroki-san, good morning." Midoriya greeted the boy with a polite bow.

The air between them grew awkwardly thick as the son of the number two hero remained silent while staring at the '_telekinesis'_ user with his cold gaze. As far as Midoriya knew, Todoroki was a particularly antisocial guy who rarely ever talked to his classmates.

"Is there something that I can help you with?" The green haired teen asked in a slightly confused tone.

"Since it's only the two of us out here for the moment, I guess now's as good a time as any to say this. But looking at things objectively, I'm stronger than you in terms of raw power." The two-tone teen suddenly said.

"Okay…"

"But for some reason, you've been able to beat me every time the two of us have gone up against each other." The boy continued.

"Okay…" Midoriya repeated, wondering exactly where the boy from 1-A was going with this.

"I'm letting you know that from here on out, you will _never_ beat me again. The next time we face each other, I will be victorious."

"Um...alright." Midoriya simply nodded. He wasn't exactly sure what brought on this sudden announcement. But he had a feeling that his victory over the powerhouse of class 1-A in the Sports Festival had something to do with it. "What's this all about, Todoroki-san?"

"You know my father...he's the number two hero."

"Yeah, I talked to him once during the Sports Festival."

Midoriya's words were enough to make Todoroki pause. Apparently this was the heterochromatic teen's first time hearing about this. And whatever words were about to come out of his mouth suddenly took a back seat. "What did he say to you?"

"He offered me an internship at his agency."

"And you declined?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

In all honesty, Midoriya didn't really feel like delving into the multiple reasons why he didn't want to intern at the Endeavor Agency. Not only did their short interaction leave a bad taste in his mouth. But everything he heard from Ozehana about how the man operates only cemented his opinion of the current number two hero.

"I had a better offer."

"From Blizzard, right?"

"Yeah."

Once again, Todoroki stood silent for a few seconds as the gears began turning in his head. "Y'know...my father isn't very fond of that woman, or her older sister. Especially after one of his old sidekicks left his agency to go join her."

"That's understandable." Said Midoriya. "Ozehana-san's pretty powerful and she does quality work from what I've seen. I can imagine that anyone would be sad to lose a good hero like her."

"Agreed." Todoroki simply said before drastically changing subjects. "So what exactly is your connection to the Katsuragis?"

"Huh?"

"I won't pry too much, but I'm curious. One of your classmates said that you're the "Psychic Sisters" younger brother. And given your general appearance, your quirk and the fact that you've interned at her agency, it really isn't too hard to imagine that to be true."

'_I really need to talk to Honenuki-san and Awase-san about making these jokes around people….'_ The boy breathed a slightly irritated sigh before opening his mouth to once again let someone know that he isn't related to his mentor. "Look Todoroki-san, I'm not-"

"Oh man, it's way too early for this!" The tired voice of Kaminari cut the boy off before he could finish his statement.

Near the entrance of the lodge, all the rest of the students were filing out of the building and huddling up in the clearing. Apparently this signaled the end of their conversation because Todoroki simply turned around and left Midoriya with so much as a word.

'_Weird guy.'_ Midoriya simply shrugged before he himself went to join the rest of the class.

* * *

Once everyone was finally present and accounted for, Aizawa and Kan wasted no time in getting the party started.

First, the two teachers went into a brief explanation about how the purpose of the camp to focus on getting the students ready to take the provisional license exam before the start of the next semester. Which was certainly shocking news to them. After that, they went on to give a general layout for how their day was going to go. Essentially, they were going to split up into groups with a specific hero and work on improving the overall strength of their quirks.

"Although many of you have improved in terms of how to best apply your quirks. Our objective this week is to try and improve the overall power of them." Aizawa stated.

"What do you mean, sensei?" Uraraka raised her hand.

Instead of responding, the nocturnal hero pulled two softballs from out of nowhere. The first one, he tossed to Bakugou. And the other, he threw over to Midoriya.

"The two of you got the highest scores on the ball throw in each of the classes. If my memory is correct, Bakugou had a score of 705.2 meters."

"Midoriya came in at four hundred even." Kan added on.

"I see." Shishida remarked. "This will be used as a benchmark to assess our overall progress related to our quirks."

"We've been working hard this semester, so it makes sense that we'd have at least some improvement." Kendou added.

"I want the two of you to throw those balls as far as you can with your quirks. Just like how you did during the quirk apprehension test." Aizawa ordered.

"Show us what you got, Bakugou!" Kirishima cheered on from the left side of the crowd.

An almost feral grin formed on the face of the ashen blonde teen as he geared up for his throw. Naturally, the 1-B students didn't know what to expect. But judging by how all of the 1-A students were bracing themselves, they assumed that they should follow suit and covered their ears.

"Watch and learn, Deku." Bakugou gave a sharp look to the greenette before launching the ball through the air with a massive, yet well executed explosion. "Go to hell!"

"Did he really just scream "_Go to hell"_...?" Yanagi asked, wondering if her ears were playing tricks on her.

A few seconds passed before the information was received on Aizawa's phone. The black haired man then checked the number himself before turning it over to face the students. On the screen, they were all pretty surprised to see that the number was only 709.6 meters.

"What?" Bakugou said in bewilderment.

"That's it?" Kirishima asked out loud.

"Kind of a let down, ain't it?" Sero followed up.

"Alright Midoriya, you're up!" Kan then said to his student.

"Y-yes, sir!" Midoriya nodded before activating his quirk. Much like how he did at the start of the year, the '_telekinesis'_ user simply began levitating the ball above his hand before sending it flying directly in front of him. Like usual, once it was outside of his range the ball immediately dropped to the ground. But by then, it was already further than what anyone could see.

"Oh wow." Kan suddenly said, slightly raising everyone's curiosity. Aizawa then held the phone out in front of them and showed the class the number "451" on the screen.

"Are you serious?"

"That's a fifty meter improvement from the last time." Yanagi said in disbelief.

"That's insane." Tokage said in an impressed tone.

She wasn't an expert on telekinetic quirks, but even she knew something like that wasn't normal. A twelve percent increase over the course of a few months was bizarre. And it was even more bizarre when you consider the fact that Midoriya has only had his quirk for roughly a year. Evidently, Katsuragi was right that day during their internships. Midoriya might actually be on the same level as Tornado one day.

"Damn Midoriya, are you taking PEDs or something?!" Tsuburaba joked from his spot next to Monoma.

Midoriya himself was just as confused about the sudden increase in his range as much as everyone else. Nothing about that seemed out of the ordinary as far as his quirk was concerned. But considering the fact that at some point he improved a whole fifty meters in the span of one semester was definitely strange. Granted, this was his first time in a while testing out his maximum range limit.

While the 1-B students were giving Midoriya a few compliments, all of which caused the boy to turn into a blushing mess. Bakugou was silently fuming a few meters away from him. Not only had he barely improved on his own score, but that loser Deku had the audacity to upstage him in front of everyone.

"Due to your various experiences, all of you have definitely improved. But those improvements have mostly been limited to mental fortitude and technical application. With a slight increase in stamina thrown in." Kan began before Aizawa took over.

"But as you can see...for many of you, your quirks haven't improved much on a fundamental level. This will be what we focus on for the majority of the time that we're out here. I guarantee you that this training will be so hard that some of you might consider dropping out of the hero course."

A few students couldn't help but gulp at the proclamation given by the nocturnal hero.

"Bottom line is...get ready for "Hell Week"!"

* * *

The first hour of quirk training for the students could very well be considered an actual nightmare.

Not only were students working hard, they were going at full speed with no chance of slowing down anytime soon. All across the camp, the members of U.A.'s first year hero course were firing off their quirks left and right. Everyone had been split up into groups assigned to a specific pro hero after their morning meeting with their teachers. And the heroes wasted no time in pressing their foot down on the gas pedal.

For Midoriya, his group consisted of himself, Yanagi, Honenuki, Uraraka, Awase and Kodai. And all of them were currently being supervised by Pixie-Bob, the blonde haired member of the Wild Pussycats. From what he could gather, Midoriya assumed that this specific group was put together because everyone present had a quirk that could manipulate objects and terrain in some capacity. And since the woman could control earth, she was the most logical person for the job.

"C'mon greenie, you can do better than that!" She shouted as she formed yet another boulder for him to lift up.

At the moment, Midoriya was floating a good eight meters above the ground while constantly spinning an ever-increasing amount of rocks around his body. Much like his training with Katsuragi back during his internships, the green haired teen was not allowed to touch the ground. Normally this would be no problem for him, but with the task of also dealing with these rocks it was hard to keep his focus.

While that was going on, Yanagi was doing a similar exercise. The other telekinetic student was given the duty of also manipulating some boulders. Except for her, every rock that she was given was the maximum amount of weight that she could lift. While Midoriya's issue was still related to his control over multiple objects, her's was related to her weight limit. Simply put, the more objects that she had to levitate that were close to it, the harder the strain was on her body.

For the other students, Honenuki was doing his best to control the path that his '_softening'_ quirk took. Which was much easier said than done considering he was so used to just activating it over a large area instead of using it in a more controlled fashion. Kodai was resizing rocks left and right with very little time in between. Awase's hands were beginning to throb as he had been welding rocks and metals of different densities both to each other and his body ever since starting. The headband wearing teen still hadn't noticed the small pebble still stuck to his cheek.

And in the most bizarre of the group, Uraraka was focusing on her nausea issue. For her, the brunette was currently rolling down the mountain side in a giant plastic bubble. And every few seconds, Pixie-Bob would put up some sort of obstacle to throw the girl's equilibrium out of whack.

"I hope you kittens are having fun. Because we'll be going at it like this until you break for lunch!" The blonde haired heroine cheered happily.

* * *

On the other side of the camp, Tokage was certainly not having the best of times. The green haired teen's focus was all over the place...literally. For her, the girl was given the task of separating her body up into as many pieces as she could and spreading them out over as wide an area as possible. On the surface, it didn't seem like anything that she couldn't handle. However, Ragdoll also told the girl that she had to reform her body every five seconds before immediately spreading her pieces out again.

The problem with this was that it didn't give the girl any time to properly reset her body in between repetitions. Because of this, it was a constant drain on her stamina. So far in the school year, the girl had been able to increase her limit from twenty pieces to thirty. But with more pieces also came more energy that she would need to be expended to control and manipulate them.

Also in Tokage's group were Shiozaki, Tsunotori, Tokoyami and Kamakiri. Based on what Ragdoll had told them, they were lumped together due to their quirks requiring them to manipulate their bodies in some way, shape or form. Which did make a lot of sense. Just like her, everyone else had been using their quirks non-stop for the last hour and some change. The only outlier of their group was Tokoyami, who was in a dark cave not too far away from them. But based on the boy's constant yelling, she could tell that he was having a difficult time just like everyone else.

Despite all of that, Tokage was still glad that she was not a part of Tiger's group. The brunette man was in charge of everyone with a strength or body enhancement quirk. Even from where she was floating she could see Kendou and Ojiro sparring like there was no tomorrow. Along with Tetsutetsu and Kirishima who were just beating the ever living shit out of each other.

Overall, the first day of training was shaping up to be quite a drag.

* * *

By the time their lunch break came around, the students were already feeling the burn. Most of the wannabe heroes were well past their limits by now. But the promise of having to do more of the same didn't boost their morale in the slightest.

"I'm fucking exhausted!" Awase groaned after dropping his body to the ground to rest his limbs.

"Hmm." Kodai nodded in her usually neutral tone while trying her best to open up a bottle of water.

Across the clearing, Midoriya was taking the time to rest his body and mind. The boy found a comfortable patch of ground not too far from where he was training that was just soft enough to be considered dirt. Although he was still grateful that he finally had a quirk of his own. The downside to it's versatility meant that his training was going to be just as multifaceted.

"How are you holding up?" The stoic voice of Yanagi asked after making her way over to him. Needing to walk around for a bit after spending most of the morning in the exact same spot.

"I'll survive." He joked while giving the grey haired teen a thumbs up.

Deciding to take a moment to rest herself, Yanagi sat down on the ground beside the boy and handed him the extra bottle of water that she was carrying along with a protein bar. All Midoriya did was give the girl a quick "thank you" before sitting himself up.

"This training is just as difficult as Kan-sensei said it would be." The girl stated.

"Yeah." The boy nodded.

"This may be one of the few times I'm grateful for not having the ability to fly on my own. I'm already having a hard enough time trying to manage my own training. But you've been multitasking the entire morning."

"Yeah that's true." Midoriya laughed after taking a sip from his water bottle. "Pixie-Bob said that my main focus this afternoon is going to be my flying. And I have a feeling that she's going to throw some curveballs in there."

The two sat in relatively comfortable silence for the next few minutes as they powered through their food. They were only given forty-five minutes to relax before getting back to their training. And they planned on taking full advantage of it, as well as the others. In fact, Honenuki was already taking a nap at the other end of clearing from what they could tell.

"If we keep going at the same rate as we are now, I wonder how strong all of us will get." Yanagi suddenly said.

"Probably a lot. Everyone in our class already has strong quirks. It wouldn't be surprising if some people made some significant changes."

"Kind of like you?" The girl replied. "When did you increase the range of your quirk? A fifty meter jump is nothing to sneeze at."

"To be honest, I have no clue." He shrugged. "I was just as surprised as everyone else."

Yanagi could tell that the boy was being honest about his response. "Still, it's pretty impressive."

"Yeah, it is. It's even crazier when you consider the fact that I haven't had my quirk for very long." Midoriya said in a joking tone. Barely a second later, the boy finally realized the words that came out of his mouth and immediately regretted it.

"What do you mean you haven't had your quirk for very long?" A now curious Yanagi asked in an ever-so-slightly confused tone.

Inside of his mind, Midoriya tried to find a remedy to this solution. Unfortunately for him, the only thing that he could think of was either walking away or abruptly changing topics. And both options would do very little in helping him. The boy racked his brain for a couple of seconds before deciding that he should just roll with it. Yanagi already knew one of his biggest secrets, so there was really no harm in telling her this one as well.

"W-well...actually...I've only had my quirk for a little over a year." He nervously admitted.

Yanagi was silent for a moment as she processed that piece of information. Midoriya only had his quirk for a year? That was certainly strange. Nevermind the fact that she had never heard of someone developing a quirk so late. She was shocked that he was already this strong in such a short amount of time. All of a sudden, a lot of things started making sense to the girl. Especially the possibility that his former quirklessness was a major factor in why he used to cut himself.

"That makes sense."

"Huh?" The boy tilted his head in confusion.

"You getting a quirk that late explains why you don't have a lot of control over it." The girl continued on. "I always wondered why you used it in such a limited way. But now it makes sense why you do that. It's because it's still developing."

"I guess you're right."

"It also explains why you're not as arrogant as most people with powerful quirks."

"Yeah...I'd like to think so." Midoriya awkwardly rubbed the back of his head.

Yanagi's reaction was definitely a relief to Midoriya. Part of him was absolutely certain that the girl was going to look at him in a weird way. Of course, he didn't expect her to make a big deal out of it. But her simply just accepting the information as it was without any further questions definitely helped release some of the tension in his chest.

'_Still... he's this strong after only a year. That's definitely something to think about.'_

Eventually, lunchtime came to an end and the U.A. students went back to their training. Much to their own dismay.

* * *

A couple of hours after starting back up, Midoriya was soaring through the air like a green rocket.

His focus for the time being was his flying. So far in the school year, the boy had been able to improve his time from around eleven minutes to roughly twenty before he needed to take a break. He still doesn't know why exactly he had improved so much in terms of his control over his quirk. But over the last couple of hours he had noticed that moving through the air was slightly easier than it had been in the past. However, ever since the end of semester exam he had noticed that some things were also easier to move than before.

'_I wonder if me using that "Overdrive" technique has something to do with it?'_ He thought to himself before the voice of his instructor caught his ear.

"Midoriya-kun, come down here for a second!" Mandalay called out to the boy who was moments away from passing by them. The telepathic heroine was standing next to his blonde haired classmate, Neito Monoma.

"What is it?" The boy asked as he landed on the ground in front of them. Wondering what the brunette member of the Wild Pussycats could want from him.

"Monoma-kun's quirk just timed out and I was wondering if you'd be alright with letting him use yours. We're trying to get his body used to handling a wide array of quirks at the same time." She explained.

"Yeah, sure." The green haired boy replied without a second thought. He had always wondered how his classmate would handle his quirk. He had seen him use Yanagi's a couple of times. But so far in the year, there was never an opportunity for the '_copy'_ quirk user to try out his power.

"Thank you, Midoriya-kun." Monoma said to the boy with a grin.

Naturally, the blonde haired boy was really looking forward to this. Aside from Todoroki's, Midoriya's quirk was the one that he had been hoping to try out the most. It wasn't out of some lust for power or anything like that. In truth, the boy really just wanted to see what it was like to fly. Non-mutant type flying quirks were a rarity, right up there with teleportation and healing. So it was only natural that he would jump at the chance to experience that for himself.

Without any hesitation, Midoriya held out his hand towards the boy and Monoma wasted no time in placing his over his classmate's and activating his quirk. On Midoriya's end, the boy didn't feel anything. He half-expected to feel some type of reaction to having his quirk copied, but there was nothing. However, on the other side of the equation Monoma was definitely feeling it.

"Is thought so." The '_copy'_ quirk user looked at his hand. "Your quirk and Yanagi-chan's might be the same. But they function differently."

"What do you mean?" Midoriya asked in a curious tone.

"Well for starters, your-ugh!" Out of nowhere, Monoma's nose began leaking blood, his eyes became bloodshot and the boy suddenly doubled over in pain.

"Monoma-kun!" Mandalay shouted, catching the attention of everyone who was nearby.

Unfortunately, neither of the two were able to stop the blonde haired boy from falling face-first into the dirt.

* * *

When Monoma finally regained consciousness, the boy was lying on a sofa in a large room. It took a second for his vision to clear up, but once it finally did he was met with worried expressions of both Midoriya and Mandalay. Actually, it wasn't just those two in the room. There was a smaller kid with a weird hat that he didn't recognize.

"My goodness, how long was I out?" The '_copy'_ quirk user asked as he tried to sit up. However, that slight bit of movement was enough to cause a sudden spike in the pain that he was still feeling in his head.

"Woah, easy there kid." The woman told him in a soft tone before turning to the child. "Kota, can you go grab a bottle of water from the kitchen?"

"Whatever…" The boy now identified as Kota scowled before shoving his hands in his pockets and walking out of the room.

A few seconds went by before the focus was now back onto Monoma and his current condition.

"How are you feeling?"

"Aside from an ear-splitting headache, I'd say I'm doing rather well." The boy replied to the heroine.

"What happened to you?"

Monoma racked his brain for a moment as he tried to find the right words to explain how he felt right before he blacked out. One of the benefits of his quirk was that he was instinitcily able to use it and know how it operates to a certain extent. And because of that, he had a pretty good idea of what happened.

"To put it simply...my body couldn't adapt to the quirk very well."

"What do you mean?" The '_telekinesis'_ user inquired.

"Whenever I copy someone's quirk, I also copy their body's natural resistance and adaptation to it. For example, when I absorbed Bakugou-san's quirk the muscle tissue in my shoulders and forearms increased. Or when I copy Tsuburaba-kun's, my lungs briefly expand."

"Hmm, that does make a lot of sense." Mandalay commented. "But what does that have to do with what happened this time?"

The blonde haired teen stayed silent for a moment before glancing over to Midoriya. "When it comes to Midoriya-kun's quirk...it was almost as if his body had little to no natural resistance to the actual quirk itself. Barely a few seconds after I activated it, it felt like someone hit me in the back of the head with a hammer."

That phrase stuck out to Midoriya quite a bit. Mainly because he felt the exact same pain after using "Overdrive". The boy couldn't help but wonder if him developing a quirk so late had something to do with what Monoma had explained to him.

"Well, I guess that makes sense. I've known a few people who've had quirks that weren't exactly suited to their bodies. I actually know a guy I went to high school with that had the ability to manipulate plants. The downside was that he was seriously allergic to pollen."

"Well that's...ironic." Midoriya tried to hold in a slight chuckle.

"I actually did learn something else before I passed out." Monoma continued.

"And what is that?"

"Although your quirks are similar, both your power and Yanagi-chan's don't work the same way. Her's is more "area of effect" while yours is more "direct"."

"I don't understand." The green haired teen stated. Midoriya was curious though on how exactly his quirk differed from his classmate's. He knew that no two quirks were exactly the same, but if the difference was enough for Monoma to notice only after a few seconds then it must have been significant.

"To be perfectly frank, I think I could explain it very well. It's a difficult concept to put into words. Honestly, you might have a better chance of asking Blizzard or someone who specializes in telekinetic quirks."

"Yeah, I can understand that." Midoriya dropped his shoulders a bit. He was already cataloging this newfound information in the back of his head so that he could write it down in his hero notebook later. But he had hoped that his classmate would be able to give him a bit more insight into what he discovered. If Monoma's quirk truly allowed him to instinctively know how a quirk works. Then that means the boy might be better at analyzing quirks than he is.

Before Midoriya could ask another question, Kota returned to the room with a bottle of water. Mandalay made the decision to let Monoma rest up for a bit before going back to training and told Midoriya to head back outside. Of course the boy complied with the order, but he made a mental note to talk to his classmates later to get a few more details on this matter.

* * *

Once training for the day was over, the hero course students were finally able to sit back and relax for a bit. Of course, most of them were a bit peeved that they had to cook their own dinner after pushing their bodies to the limit for the entire day. But overall, they were just too tired to really care at this point.

"Oh my god! I don't know if this curry is actually good, or if I'm just so hungry that my tongue doesn't actually care about flavor anymore!" Tetsutetsu said as he inhaled his food like it was his first meal in days.

"Let's just be glad that it's actually edible." Honenuki followed up while also shoveling his food into his mouth.

"Seriously, I don't even care that my hands are still cramping up." Kendou giggled.

Aside from the three of them, their table consisted of Midoriya, Tokage, Yanagi, Shiozaki, Awase and Tsunotori. It was pretty obvious by this point in the school year that this was their default group of friends. But neither of them were complaining. They had a pretty good dynamic and everyone got along really well.

"Man Pony, you were really kicking it into high gear today weren't you? You did like two hundred laps around the entire camp this afternoon." Said Awase.

"Yes, my feet still have much exhaustion. Might need replacing horseshoes after camp." The American teen pointed down to her hooves.

"What about Tokage-chan? She was all over the place...literally."

"I'm just glad that I didn't lose any limbs today." The girl gave a toothy smirk while scarfing down her third plate.

To her right, Midoriya was busy trying to keep the world from spinning too fast. One of the side effects that came with overusing his quirk for flying were sudden episodes of nausea. And since he had practically used it non-stop for the entire afternoon, he was having a difficult time keeping his food down. Across the table, Yanagi seemed to be in the same boat. The grey haired teen had her hand over her exposed eye and was taking _very _slow bites.

"You doing okay, Izuku?" Tokage asked her boyfriend(?). Now that she thought about it, the two of them never did clarify exactly what they were to each other. They were dating, that much was plain as day. But were they on the boyfriend/girlfriend level yet? Maybe she should get around to doing that sometime soon. Preferably when the boy is not minutes away from passing out at the table.

"Yeah...I'm fine."

Out of nowhere, Tokage's hand popped off her arm and placed itself on Midoriya's forehead. "Hmm...you don't appear to have a fever. But you do look pretty _hot _to me." The others were quick to pick up on the girl's not-so-subtle innuendo. "Do you need to rest your head on my lap?"

At the other table, Mineta began violently coughing.

Midoriya's furious blush was enough to get a few laughs from everyone around them. Although he should really be used to this by now, Tokage's antics were still enough to throw him off guard. Especially when she would ask him stuff like that completely out of the blue. And in front of other people.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me." Tokage suddenly blurted out and looked over at the other end of the table. "Hey, Kaibara!"

"Yeah?" The '_gyrate'_ quirk user answered. The boy was still fiddling with his camera after finishing his first plate. Evidently, he had a thing for photography and a friend of his in the journalism club asked him to take pictures of their time at the camp.

"What kind of girls are you into?"

Suddenly all movement in the area stopped at the girl's question. All of the boy's were wondering why she asked him something like that out of the blue. But the girls had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

"What?" Kaibara blushed.

"What kind of girls are you into?" She repeated. "I overheard some third year girls talking in the bathroom during lunch the other day and apparently they want to get a piece of you."

Tokage could almost feel Yanagi's freezing cold gaze of on the back of her head. But she decided to have some more fun with this before calling it quits.

"W-wow you're uh...kinda...putting me on the spot here…." The red faced teen sputtered out while scratching his cheek.

"_Seriously...is every guy in 1-B a secret ladies man?"_ Kaminari whispered to Mineta in a slightly jealous tone.

"Hey, while we're on the subject of Kaibara." Kamakiri decided that now was a good time to put in his two cents. "Hey, Bakugou!"

"What?!" The ashen blonde teen shouted back.

"Kaibara here really wants to know your opinion on something. Do you think that art is an explosion?"

"What?!"

"Pffft!" Tokage couldn't stop herself from laughing out loud..

"I hate you Kamakiri...so very much…." Kaibara dropped his head in defeat. Although he actually did want to know what the answer to that question was. He wasn't dumb enough directly ask the person who could blow him clean of the face of the earth.

"You gotta admit, that was pretty funny!" Honenuki chimed in. Also failing to hide his own laughter.

"Less talking and more eating!" Aizawa suddenly announced after popping up out of nowhere. "You remedial students only have an hour before your classes start. So if you want any time to relax tonight, I suggest you start stuffing your faces."

"Yes sensei…." The aforementioned students weakly replied.

In addition to Tsuburaba, Kuroiro, Bondo and Komori from 1-B. Bakugou, Todoroki, Kirishima, Kaminari, Ashido, Sero, Aoyama and Uraraka were the students from 1-A who failed to pass their exams. Which meant that in addition to their regular training during the day. The twelve of them had to go through supplementary lessons that were going to be led by Aizawa. Unfortunately for them, given the man's reputation as a nocturnal hero they could very well be up for the rest of the night.

Needless to say, Midoriya and the others did not envy them one bit.

* * *

Not too long after dinner was finally over, the non-remedial students were given the rest of the night to relax and recover their stamina. Most everyone was either in the lounge area talking to one another, or in their rooms playing on their phones. For Midoriya and Tokage, the two of them along with their usual group of friends were all sitting around one of the tables and talking about random topics. They were in the middle of a rather interesting conversation about hero teams before the green haired boy had to excuse himself to head over to the restroom.

Just as Midoriya turned the corner onto the next hall, the boy was greeted with a person that he knew all too well. Much to his dismay, he found himself standing almost face-to-face with none other than Katsuki Bakugou. The boy was one of the remedial students since his team ended up failing their exams. And judging by the direction that he was travelling, he was on his way there.

Midoriya had hoped the '_explosion'_ quirk user would just walk by without saying a word. But obviously luck was not on his side this particular evening.

"Deku!" The blonde boy with the explosive personality said in a highly aggressive tone. Loud enough to catch his attention, but not loud enough to be heard anywhere else in the hall.

Against his better judgement, Midoriya decided to humor his former classmate and respond. "Hello Bakugou, what can I help you with?" He said in a slightly sarcastic tone.

"You got a lot of fucking nerve...you useless piece of shit."

"What did I do to bruise your ego this time?"

If they weren't standing in the middle of the hallway not too far away from the nearest adult, Bakugou would've been liable to set off a small-scale explosion right in Midoriya's face. But the ashen blonde teen already had one issue that he was dealing with. That being his pending remedial classes. And he definitely didn't want to get scolded by the teachers about blasting the smug attitude out of this worthless loser.

"How dare you make a fool out of me in front of everyone?! You think that just because you've improved a little with that shitty quirk of yours that you can humiliate me?"

'_Wow, I can't believe that I actually wanted to be friends with this guy not too long ago.'_

"No, that's not what I think at all." Midoriya's tone was now dry and almost apathetic. To the outside person, one would say that the boy's personality completely changed since the beginning of this conversation.

Apparently that was the wrong answer, because it was enough to make Bakugou's blood boil. This kid used to shake in fear at the mere sight of him. Now he's talking to him as if he was a minor inconvenience.

"Let me make one thing clear, Deku…." Bakugou almost growled. "It doesn't matter how strong you get with that quirk of yours. You're just a piece of trash. An insect beneath my feet. No matter what, I _will_ be the number one hero. Not you."

"Cool…" Midoriya shrugged almost nonchalantly.

"What?" Bakugou blinked a couple of times.

"Go ahead and be the number one hero if that's what you really want. It doesn't matter to me."

"Don't give me that shit, you nerd! As long as I can remember, you used to run around claiming that you were going to be just like All Might one day. Don't act like that you've changed all of a sudden and that you don't care."

"Why on earth would I want to be like _him_? There are other aspects of heroics besides solving everything with your fists and wearing a fake smile all the time."

That was enough to make Bakugou pause for a moment. Did worthless Deku actually just say something negative about All Might? That was impossible. The shitty loser revered him almost like a God. For him to say something like that was definitely not normal. But more importantly, how dare this bug talk down about the "Symbol of Peace"?

Out of instinct, the ashen blonde teen attempted to grab a hold of Midoriya's shirt collar. But he didn't even make it halfway through his motion before his body froze up and locked in that position. Bakugou's eyes then travelled upwards only to be met with a cold gaze that was unlike anything he had seen before.

"Listen...Bakugou." Midoriya leaned in a bit. "I'm _not_ competing with you. I don't care about being the strongest. I don't care about being the best. And I certainly don't care about something ridiculous like being the number one hero. You can hold on to that childish goal of yours all you want. But understand this…"

Bakugou's body then began to move on it's own and the boy suddenly found himself standing straight up with his arms at his sides.

"I'm _not_ putting up with your ego anymore. Either learn to get over yourself, or continue falling behind the rest of your classmates. But whatever you do, leave me out of it." Following that last statement, Midoriya released his hold on the boy and began walking past him.

A now furious Bakugou then turned around and barked at the back of the boy's head. "You think you're so damn cool, huh? I wonder how your classmates would act if they found out that you were a _freak_ up until recently."

"And I wonder how the school would act if they found out how _you_ used to treat "_freaks"_ like me." Midoirya immediately shot back.

Bakugou simply remained silent as Midoriya turned the next corner to continue his way to the bathroom. He'll admit that Deku may have gotten him the best of time on this particular conversation. But that didn't make the '_explosion'_ quirk user any less furious.

At the other end of the hallway just around the corner, Ochako Uraraka was trying to make sense of the interaction that she had just witnessed. Like her classmate, she too was on her way to the mandatory remedial class. But just when she turned onto the next hall she caught sight of Midoriya and Bakugou talking. It was no secret that Bakugou hated the green haired boy from 1-B. The guy made it obvious every chance he got. And judging by the look on Midoriya's face just a minute ago, the feeling was definitely mutual.

Still, the girl was just close enough to hear what the two of them were saying. And she'd be lying if she said that her curiosity wasn't piqued. Especially when it came to what Bakugou mentioned about Midoriya being a "freak". However, as much as the girl wanted to get some more information on this she had to hurry up and get to her class.

'_Something's definitely up with those two. Bakugou-san I get, but Midoriya-san is usually so nice to people. I wonder why there's so much bad blood between them.'_

* * *

**Author's Notes: Alright let me just get it out of the way now. Do not expect anything major out of that Todoroki interaction. A friend of mine really wanted me to plug it in, and I had no reason not to do it. Plus, it fits in with the story pretty well. This is still a 1-B focus after all.**

**1\. Oh my god, a Monoma scene? And one where he isn't acting like an annoying tool? 2020 is something else. But yeah, now you guys see why I was holding off on this scene for so long. I might have taken a major liberty with the specifics on how his quirk works. But I'm setting up for something later on in the fic. Plus, there's been a stunning lack of him in this fic. Expect more Monoma scenes later on. **

**2\. Next chapter is going to be "Tokage-centric". To be honest, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to expand on her quirk since it's already pretty powerful. But hopefully I'll be able to come up with something soon. **

**3\. For the record...I've been sitting on that Naruto joke ever since the Sports Festival Arc. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.**


	27. Training Camp: Day 3

All Midoriya could see around him was a vast plain of darkness. There was no light, no sound, nothing other than his own body floating in an endless miasma of pitch black. Midoriya wasn't one who dreamt very often. In actuality it was a rare occurrence for the boy altogether.

"Hmph!" A sound from behind him suddenly caught his attention.

In reaction, Midoriya quickly rotated himself around, only to meet with the sight of another person. Actually, saying that it was a person was a bit of a stretch. Before him was a human-like silhouette cloaked in grey mist. It took him a second, but he could clearly see that the figure had to be a woman based on slight curves that shaped her form.

Her features were indistinguishable except for one thing, her eyes. Much like him, the figure possessed a pair of emerald green orbs that seemed to be boring a hole into his soul. But unlike him these eyes were different. If he had to describe them, they were cold, vain and almost judgmental. He couldn't see the person's face. Yet it was obvious that they were looking at him with a slight bit of contempt. And for some reason, she seemed vaguely familiar.

"W-who are you?" Midoriya asked hesitantly. Something told him that he should choose his words carefully so as to not anger them.

"Hmph!" Was the only response that the figure gave as she turned her head, almost as if she was disgusted for some reason.

Before the boy could say another word, the mass of grey mist dissipated in an instant. Leaving him all alone in the void.

* * *

The morning training session came and went for the would-be heroes of U.A..

Just like the day before, the students had been rigorously training their quirks and pushing themselves to the limit. Not only were they starting to feel the wear and tear from today's training. But the fatigue from yesterday's session was still howling in their muscles.

Thankfully, the future heroes were granted a respite from their labors. Shortly after lunch was over, everyone was told to head over to the base of the nearby cliffside and await further instructions from their teachers.

"Alright students, listen up!" Kan shouted. "We're taking a break from your quirk training this afternoon and are going to switch things up a bit."

"What do you mean?" One of the students followed up.

"Today you maggots are going to be going up against each other in a game of "quirk dodgeball"!" Tiger impatiently announced while flexing his muscles.

"Quirk…dodgeball?" Shiozaki repeated curiously.

"What are the rules?" Asked Honenuki.

"As the name suggests…all of you will be participating in a few games of dodgeball in which you are allowed to use your quirks." Aizawa explained.

"Standard rules still apply. If you get hit by a ball, you're out. If you catch a ball, then the person who threw it is out and you get to recall any member of your team that was taken out prior to that. You'll be split up into teams of ten and both opposing teams will start at either end of the playing field. Use your quirks as necessary for mobility, offense and defense. However…do show some restraint." The man finished off by giving a sharp look towards a certain ashen blonde student.

Kirishima was the first to raise his hand. "So where's the playing field?"

"Right here!" Pixie-Bob announced before activating her quirk. The students watched as the woman created dozens of large pillars of various sizes over an area about half the size of a soccer field. Judging by what they could see, it would be hard for anyone without a high mobility quirk to maneuver in between the obstacles. How they were supposed to play a game of dodgeball in there was a mystery.

"This is gonna be awesome." Tsuburaba smirked.

"Like we said before, you're going to be split up into four groups of ten." Kan said after regaining everyone's focus. "The first group will be Tokage, Shinsou, Shoji, Hagakure, Awase, Bondo, Ashido, Yanagi, Rin and Shiozaki."

The aforementioned students looked around at one another for a moment. In terms of fighting strength they were pretty balanced. And they had some team members who were pretty good when it came to mobility. The only wild card was Shinsou. In Tokage's mind, his quirk wasn't exactly the best for this kind of scenario.

"Their opponents will be Uraraka, Tokoyami, Tetsutetsu, Kodai, Ojiro, Tsunotori, Mineta, Shoda, Midoriya and Bakugou."

Almost immediately Midoriya and Bakugou simultaneously did a double-take towards one another. The two of them were on the same team? That didn't bode well in the slightest. Any semblance of team chemistry their group might have had suddenly flew out the window after hearing that.

However, unbeknownst to the two former classmates this was no mistake. Aizawa had purposely out them together. When it came to Bakugou, the nocturnal hero could identify quite a few major flaws in how he operated. One of which being his reluctance to work with others. During the exam, he and his team would have fared much better if he bothered to try and work with them instead of attempting to do everything on his own.

The second issue that was apparent to the man was that for whatever reason Bakugou absolutely hated Midoriya. He had no clue what the reason behind this was. But every time the green haired boy from 1-B was brought up in conversation around him, he would become noticeably more irritable than usual. This game would be a good measure of whether or not he learned anything from his failures.

"Now that the first two teams have been announced, you all have ten minutes to come up with a strategy before we start. Good luck!"

* * *

"Alright Midoriya, so what's the plan?" Tetsutetsu said to the green haired boy as their group huddled together.

"And the hell makes you think that Deku is in charge, Shitty Eyelashes?" Bakugou immediately protested.

"Because he's the strongest one here, he's good at coming up with plans, his quirk is perfect for this kind of thing and unlike you...he's actually a team player." The silver haired boy replied without any hesitation.

Although Tetsutetsu normally wasn't one to judge people he didn't know all that well, Bakugou was a bit of a special case. His introduction to the boy at the start of the school year left a pretty bad taste in his mouth. Especially how he seemed to have no trouble calling Midoriya a freak for allegedly being quirkless. After that, nothing he had seen from the ashen blonde teen was enough to warrant his respect. It was still a mystery to him why someone like Kirishima enjoyed being around the guy so much.

Somehow Bakugou was able to keep his temper under control just enough to not blast Tetsutetsu into a crater. He was starting to get sick and tired of these 1-B rejects thinking that they could get away with talking to him so recklessly.

"Like hell I'm going to let that useless nerd boss me around!" The '_explosion'_ quirk user declared.

"_Midoriya, be honest with me. Has this guy always been this angry?"_ Tsunotori whispered to her classmates in her native tongue.

Maybe she could just chalk it up to one of the many cultural differences between here and her home country. But the American girl really had a hard time wrapping her head around how someone like Bakugou could be a hero candidate. Aside from his powerful quirk, there was nothing "heroic" about him in her opinion. The guy was a walking time bomb with a temper to match. Back home, no one like him would've ever been allowed to enter a hero school without some serious counseling and reconditioning. But she assumed that the people of Japan just had different views on the subject.

"So I take it that you want to be in charge then?" Shoda dryly asked, already dreading having to deal with the 1-A boy.

"I don't want to be in charge, I _am_ in charge! As long as you extras do what I say we'll beat those other losers."

"And you really expect us to do what you want after you just called all of us "_extras"_…?" Tetsutetsu deadpanned.

"Guys…just let Bakugou be in charge. We don't really have the time to argue about it." Midoriya suggested while pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew something like this was going to happen.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." He nodded.

"It's good to see that you still know your place." The ashen blonde teen gave the boy a side-eye.

All Midoriya did in response was roll his eyes before letting Bakugou tell them their strategy. Although a part of him hated the idea of taking directions from his former tormentor, he was mature enough to put his personal feelings aside for the time being.

At the very least, he hoped that this was going to be over quickly.

* * *

"Alright team, so how are we going to play this?" Tokage looked to the other members of her group.

"They have a lot of heavy hitters in their group, especially Midoriya. I think we should make taking him out our first priority since his quirk is perfect for this." Awase commented.

"Bakugou's going to be an issue an issue too." Hiryu Rin stated.

"Yeah, you're right about that…." Tokage began rubbing her hand on her chin. "Their team is pretty stacked."

On paper, it was easy to say that Midoriya's team had the advantage. Aside from him and Bakugou, they had Tokoyami and Uraraka as well. Which meant that they were pretty well balanced in terms of range. Be that as it may, Tokage was never one to shy away from a challenge. Not only was she really looking forward to once again getting the chance to go up against Midoriya. With the people on their team, victory was almost a guarantee if they played their cards right.

"I vote that we play the defensive game." Rin suggested. "There's a limited number of balls anyway, let's just wait it out for a bit until they don't have the chance to attack us."

"That doesn't really matter since Midoriya can just levitate as many balls as he wants."

"Oh, don't worry about Izuku. I've got the perfect strategy to take him out. And it involves you, Ghosty." The green haired girl practically beamed confidence while grinning towards Yanagi.

"Alright."

* * *

"Ready...begin!" Ragdoll shouted in a joyous tone towards the students.

The second the woman lowered her hand, most of the students acted as one would predict. Some of them rush to the center of the playing field where the balls were at while others intentionally stayed behind. Bakugou of course flew straight in and started sending explosion powered balls flying in every direction while laughing like a maniac. In the span of a couple of seconds, he managed to knockout Ashido and Shinsou with very little effort.

While that was going on, a few other students were making their moves.

On the other side of the field. Ojiro and Uraraka were doing their best to avoid getting nailed by Shiozaki. The girl was using her vines to throw multiple balls at once, which proved to be quite a difficult situation. Tokoyami was using his '_dark shadow'_ to maneuver between pillars with some rather impressive speed. And in the most hilarious turn of events yet, Awase managed to get Tetsutetsu out in one throw. By a sheer stroke of dumb luck, the '_weld'_ quirk user activated his power right as the ball hit him the face. According to Mandalay, this technically counted as a catch which meant that the headband wearing teen was still in the game.

However, there was one thing that left everyone scratching their heads, and that was Midoriya. The boy quite literally wasn't doing anything at all. He was simply floating in the air above the above the playing field and watching. Unknown to the others, Bakugou had directed him to simply stay up there and keep an eye out. Midoriya had no reason to deny it, so he just rolled with the de facto group leader's demands. Yet, that certainly didn't stop him from having his own plan.

Unbeknownst to everyone else, while the madness was in full swing Kodai was shrinking as many dodgeballs as she could and stuffing them into her pockets. Once the black haired girl had a decent amount she circled back around to where she was in Midoriya's line of sight. After enlarging the captured dodgeballs quite a bit the girl gave him a thumbs up and Midoriya began levitating them into the air. The moment they were all in position, Kodai activated her quirk once again and the dodgeballs all grew to an absolutely ridiculous size. About the same as a car.

Without a second thought, the green haired boy dropped the balls out of the air and chaos quickly ensued as the other team began retreating from the giant red balls of death. Unfortunately, the boy wasn't able to enjoy the success of his plan before narrowly avoiding a dodgeball that came at him from below.

He looked down to see none other than Yanagi. The girl was floating several balls around her body somewhat like a protective shield. The boy didn't even have enough time to think before another two balls were sent flying at him. Midoriya knew that the range of the girl's quirk was limited to about thirty meters. So the sooner he got away from her the better. As he began ascending further into the air, a strong force flanked him on his right arm.

The second he turned around Midoriya was narrowly able to dodge another dodgeball, however this was one was different. Right after it passed him, the thing came circling back around at a pretty impressive speed. Just when he was about to begin maneuvering through the air, another force struck him from behind.

"Sorry Izuku, but you're too much of a threat to leave alone!" The floating head of Tokage shouted at him from close by.

Immediately after that, the girl encased his entire body in one of her "Scale Storms". But that was only part one of this attack. What Midoriya hadn't noticed was the other set of pieces above him that was mere moments away from making contact. Nor could he see the lone dodgeball coming at him from below.

Over the last few weeks Tokage had been working on splitting her focus to conduct multiple attacks at once. It wasn't easy by any means. In fact, it took all of her brain power to literally move her body in separate directions across multiple areas at once. But now she was finally starting to get the hang of it. And there was no better person to test it on than like Midoriya who's quirk was also versatile enough to counter it.

Back with Midoriya, the boy was quickly trying to think of a way out of this situation. He was literally pinned down from all sides and was about to get taken out of the game. Unfortunately for him, this would prove to be futile. What the boy didn't realize was that this was all just one giant diversion. Instead of actually planning to hit him with either her second wave of pieces or the dodgeball, Tokage had other ideas. Just when it looked like Midoriya was distracted, the girl sent on her pieces flying at him and nailed him in the side of the head.

'_Without that helmet on, he's pretty much a sitting duck.'_ The girl grinned outwardly.

As expected, the sudden impact was enough to disrupt Midoriya's control on his quirk. As the boy began losing altitude Yanagi finally took her shot. The gray haired girl sent about seven dodgeballs his way and connected with each and every one of them. Luckily, the boy just so happened to be floating a few meters above one of the nearby pillars so his landing was relatively safe.

"Midoriya-kun, you're out!" Mandalay shouted from the sideline. Very impressed by the teamwork that she just saw.

"I almost forgot that Midoriya-kun actually has a weakness." Said Kendou to a few of the 1-B students. It was easy to forget that the powerhouse of their class could be taken down with one good blow to the head.

"Alright! Good job Ghosty!" Tokage gave Yanagi a thumbs up.

'_I can't believe that actually worked.'_ The '_poltergeist'_ user thought to herself.

Barely a few minutes later, the game to an end with Tokage's team coming out as the victors. Thanks to some impressive skill on Shiozaki's part to take down Tokoyami and a few others they were able to take a good lead. And much to everyone's surprise Toru Hagakure, the invisible girl from 1-A, managed to sneak up behind Bakugou and take him out of the game. Much to the '_explosion'_ quirk user's annoyance.

The rest of the afternoon was spent like this. And the students were more than happy to take a break from their hellish training to have a little bit of fun.

* * *

Once training for the day was complete, the students were finally given some time to relax before they needed to start making dinner. Well, everyone minus those in the remedial class. Those lucky souls were tasked with helping Tiger and Pixie-Bob get the supplies from the kitchen and storage shack.

After changing out of their uniforms, Midoriya, Tokage and Tetsutetsu were all walking together to the lounge area to join their classmates. The trio were seconds away from turning the corner when they just so happened to run into Shinsou of all people. The boy looked particularly exhausted out of everyone. From what they had seen, Aizawa had the general studies student focusing more on physical training rather than quirk related exercises. Which wasn't all that surprising considering his rather frail frame.

"What's up, Shinsou? Good work out there today." Tetsutetsu politely greeted the boy with a friendly wave.

"Hmph." The purple haired teen scoffed.

That rude action was enough to rub Tokage the wrong way. Sure the boy didn't seem overly friendly, but that wasn't an excuse to be rude to people for no reason. "Geez dude, what's your problem?"

"None of your business." He shot back.

"Wow, I guess the girls from 1-A were right. You are kind of a dick."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Tokage scowled with her hands on her hips. "The entire time we've been out here you've been avoiding everyone else. Y'know, if you do end up getting into the hero course you're gonna have to get rid of that attitude."

"And why should I care about what _you_ have to say? Last time I checked, I'm the one who won our match in the Sports Festival."

"Yeah, you sure did." She shrugged. "But now that we all know how your quirk works, the chances of that happening again are slim."

For some reason, the girl's words seemed to strike a nerve with Shinsou. Sure his quirk was strong. But when it came to fighting, it was pretty one dimensional. "Well I'm sorry. Not all of us can have super flashy and versatile quirks like you people do. _Some_ of us actually have to learn how to get by with what we have."

"Okay, I think it's best that we all just calm down." Midoriya said nervously as he attempted to diffuse what was already shaping up to be an intense moment.

"What are you talking about?" Tetsutetsu immediately followed up.

"People like you would never understand what it's like. You were all blessed with _awesome_ and _heroic_ quirks that people didn't ridicule all the time. It must've been so nice having your powers put up on a pedestal and being praised for them." Shinsou continued.

"So what, you have a grudge against people with strong quirks or something? That's kind of hypocritical coming from someone with the power to brainwash people at the drop of a hat."

"Yes, my quirk is pretty good on the surface. But imagine growing up with something that caused everyone to automatically label you as "_villainous"_ and having to put up with that for your entire life."

Oh yeah, this dude definitely had a chip on his shoulder. And a big one at that. It was no secret that society nowadays was what one would call hero-centric. And people would have their abilities categorized into either two main areas. But even though the 1-B trio could understand where the guy was coming from, that didn't give him the right to be so rude.

"Y'know...being around you people makes me feel even more jealous. All of you probably grew up pretty easy and let all that praise go to your head. Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky. With my quirk people told me that I'm gonna end up as a villain. There were a lot of times that I wished that I was born quirkless. It probably would've been better."

That statement was enough to make something click in Midoriya's head.

He honestly couldn't believe that someone could say something like that so casually, like it was some sort of joke. To be frank, he was having a hard time wrapping his head around it. To say that you'd rather have been born quirkless as opposed to having a powerful brainwashing quirk was just...ridiculous. His mind quickly flashed back to all of the torment that he had suffered before his quirk developed. All of the mental and physical anguish that he had to go through just because he was powerless. He couldn't even count how many times he cried himself to sleep at night wishing for a strong quirk like Shinsou's. And here this boy was, being ungrateful for the power that he had.

Just before Midoriya could voice his opinion, Tokage decided to speak up.

"Wow...that has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

"What?" Shinsou shot the girl a confused look.

"You should be grateful that you even have a quirk to begin with. Especially a strong one like yours. Not everyone is born with a quirk. And those that don't have one have a much harder time than you ever did."

"Please, you have no idea what you're talking about."

"Actually I do." She retorted. The girl was now very annoyed and it was showing. "A couple of friends of mine were born quirkless, and their lives are far from easy. In fact, I doubt you'd even last a day in their shoes. So before you go around saying something stupid like that you should probably look up the suicide rates for quirkless people. I guarantee you that they'd be more than happy to switch places with you."

Midoriya was shocked by what he was witnessing. This may have actually been the first time in his life that he'd ever seen someone outright defend quirkless people and their lives that didn't have to go through that pain themselves.

"Whatever…"

"Instead of letting people's ignorant comments get to you, you should focus more on learning how your quirk can save lives. I mean, we have a guy in our class whose quirk is only good for blowing things up. That's way more "_villainous"_ and dangerous than brainwashing. Maybe you should learn to think for yourself in the future." Was the last thing the girl said to him before walking off in the direction of the lounge.

Although he wouldn't admit it, Shinsou was having a hard time coming up with a response to Tokage's impromptu speech. He still felt like his opinions were justified. But he'd be hard pressed to deny what the girl was saying might have been true. Either way, there was nothing more that he had to say.

Electing to get out of this painfully awkward situation, Midoriya and Tetsutetsu began walking away to go rejoin their classmate. However, the green haired boy took a second to look back at the hero course hopeful. He may not have fully understood what it was like to grow up a quirk labeled as villainous. And he could sympathize with his apparent feelings towards those blessed with powerful quirks from birth. Especially because he still had similar thoughts himself, even nowadays. But he definitely didn't appreciate the boy's earlier comment.

Either way, he was glad that Tokage was the one to speak up instead of him. Because his choice of words might not have been as nice.

* * *

After dinner was over, Midoriya was laying down on his futon with the other members of his class. Things were quickly heating up as some of the boys decided to get into an arm-wrestling match to see who was strongest. And Tetsutetsu was on his way to a rather impressive undefeated streak. The boy was halfway tempted to join in on the fun before a text notification popped up on his phone.

* * *

T-Rex: You busy?

Rabbit: No, why?

T-Rex: Meet me outside the back entrance in five minutes.

Rabbit: Okay.

* * *

True to his word, five minutes later Midoriya was standing outside the back entrance of the lodge waiting for Tokage to show up. The students still had a full hour left until their designated curfew, so it wasn't like he had to worry about staying out too late. However, he was curious as to why the girl suddenly asked him to meet up with her. Luckily, he didn't have to wait long to get an answer.

"Hey!" Tokage greeted him with a warm smile. The girl was dressed in her usual nightly attire of a pair of running shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt. Along with her hair tied up in a ponytail. Midoriya would be lying if he said that he didn't enjoy this look.

"Hey." He greeted her back.

"Sorry for taking so long. But that Ashido girl from 1-A was telling us a pretty funny story and I lost track of time."

"It's fine. I wasn't waiting long." He told her. "So…is something wrong?"

"Nope! I just thought that since we have a full hour until "lights out", we could spend a bit of _alone time_ together."

"Oh okay." The boy nodded. Tokage did have a point. The two of them hadn't really spent any time together where it was just the two of them ever since the camp started. With all the training and the few moments of downtime that they had, it was rather difficult. "So what did you have in mind?"

Tokage closed the distance between the two of them and proceeded to grab the boy by his hand. "There's a clearing a bit further into the woods." She pointed in the direction of the nearby mountain. "I asked Ragdoll earlier if it's okay for us to go there and she said that it was cool as long as we made it back by curfew."

"Really?"

"Heck yeah!" The girl cheered before pulling him in that direction. "C'mon, let's go!"

* * *

It only took a few minutes for the young couple to locate the clearing. It was a simple plot of land in the middle of the woods that was devoid of trees which just so happened to be close to the nearby stream. During the daytime it provided a lovely view of the surrounding area. But at night, it had that cheesy romance movie vibe that Tokage was looking for.

"This place is pretty nice." Midoriya voiced his thoughts while looking around.

"Told ya!" Tokage giggled before planting herself on the ground and pulling Midoriya down with her.

The two of them stayed quiet for about a minute and just gazed up at the stars. Living in the city for most of their lives, it was easy to forget how nice the night sky looked without all the extra light pollution. But now that they were out in the middle of the woods far away from the nearest metropolitan area, they were actually able to identify the constellations.

"So, how's your training going so far?" Tokage started off the conversation.

"Pretty intense to be honest." He laughed. "Pixie-Bob is really trying to keep me on my toes. How about you?"

"Pretty much the same. I'm honestly not used to using my quirk in such an extreme way for that long. Stamina is still my biggest issue, but I think that I'm starting to improve on speed." She answered back with a shrug.

"That's good to hear." Midoriya smiled back.

"Yeah, I think I'll be able to come up with some good ways to use my quirk by the end of the week. But since we're on the subject…when the heck did you improve so much? You were on fire out there today."

"I honestly have no clue." Was his reply. "I think using that "_Overdrive"_ technique Fubuki-san told me about got me over some type of wall. But I can't be too sure."

"I'll admit that I'm kind of jealous, though. If you keep going like that, the rest of us will be playing catch up pretty soon." She teased.

"I don't know about all that." Midoriya blushed a bit. No matter what, the boy still couldn't get used to being complimented like this. Especially about his quirk. He was doing a lot better lately when it came to not being so critical of people who only acknowledge him for his powers. But a part of him was still a bit skeptical.

Now that they were getting a little bit more comfortable with each other, Tokage decided to turn up the heat a bit. The girl readjusted herself and laid her head down in the boy's lap while sprawling her body out over the soft grass. Once she was in this position, not only did she have a better view of the sky above them. She also had front row seats to see just how flustered Midoriya suddenly became.

"What's wrong? Did you want to be the one to lay down instead~?" She gave him a toothy smirk.

"N-no, I just w-wasn't…expecting this is all."

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Has anyone ever told you that you have some _really_ comfortable thighs?"

"N-no…"

"Well it's true. In fact, I'm tempted to stay like this for the entire night."

"I don't think that's a good idea. We might get in trouble."

"Who said anything about staying out here? I was thinking that I would take you back to the girl's room and wrap myself around you like a baby koala."

"Yeah…I don't think that Shiozaki-san or Kendou-san would agree to that." Now it was his turn to make the jokes.

The two continued joking around like this for the next few minutes. After that, an idea popped into Tokage's head. The girl then pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened it up to the photo app. "Hey, check this out."

Midoriya grabbed hold of the device to get a better look at what she wanted him to see. To his surprise it was a picture of the two of them. More specifically, one from their first "official" date. It was right after the young couple had left the udon stand and were holding hands on their way to check out some other areas.

"It's one of the photos that Aunt Nemuri sent to my dad when she and my sister were stalking us. I thought it looked pretty good so I saved it on my phone, along with a few others."

"Yeah, it's a nice picture." He said honestly. "You really cute in it."

Tokage admittedly had to fight back a bit of blush herself. There was just something about receiving a compliment from Midoriya that made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Slowly but surely she could tell that he was getting more comfortable around her.

"Hey, now that I think about it…you never really talk about your family that much." The girl suddenly announced.

"Huh?" He looked down at the greenette.

"I talk about my family all the time, but you hardly ever mention yours. The only thing I can remember is that your mom has a similar quirk to yours and that your dad works in America."

The boy replayed every conversation between the two of them that he could remember. Tokage was right, he hardly ever talked about his mom or dad. If at all. "There's really not that much to tell. After all, my family isn't nearly as interesting as yours."

"Still, what are they like? I'm actually really curious."

"Well…." Midoriya started off as he tried to find the right words to describe his parents. "My dad's pretty easygoing. And he enjoys traveling around the country and antiquing."

Tokage had to try really hard to hold back her laughter after hearing that. "What about your mom?"

"My mom is…my mom's kind of emotional. She has a habit of getting too…_mushy_ at times. But she loves cooking."

It was easy for the girl to pick up on the not-so-subtle change in his tone. For some reason, Midoriya spoke very differently when it came to his mother as opposed to his father. Which was a bit odd in her opinion.

"Are you two not very close?" She asked without really thinking.

"We've hit a bit of a rough spot recently because of some stuff that happened a while ago."

"Oh…" Was all the girl felt like saying before deciding to switch topics. "I understand. I'm kind of the same way with my dad."

"Really?" He said in a surprised tone.

"Yeah…I hardly ever see him nowadays since he works so much. He just became the lead engineer in his department a couple of years ago so he's rarely ever home. If I'm lucky I'll only get to see him at home twice a week."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't be." She shrugged. "He makes time for me whenever he can, but I understand that he's got an important job. Plus, he _did_ spend a lot of time making my hero costume after all. So I can't be too mad at him"

"That's actually really cool."

"I know right! The only sucky part was that I had to get my haircut to make the special fibers so my suit will activate with my quirk."

'_So that's how her hero costume works with her quirk.'_ Midoriya thought to himself. He always wondered how heroes with transformation quirks got their suits to react along with their bodies. But if it was made out of their DNA then it just made a lot more sense.

"Hey, Setsu-"

Midoriya's follow up question was cut off when a pair of soft lips suddenly came crashing into his own. In that last couple of seconds Tokage decided to get the drop on him. It was her plan all along to try and sneak in a kiss before the two had to go to bed tonight. And this option seemed like the most entertaining. Without any warning, the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user detached her head from her body and brought it right up to his. Thankfully, Midoriya seemed to be thinking about something at that very moment so he wasn't really paying attention.

Time pretty much came to a halt for the two of them as their brains were processing what was going on. More specifically, Midoriya was trying his best not to burst into flames and Tokage had to stop herself from letting her hands wander.

Eventually the two parted. Revealing a one set of flushed cheeks for the girl, and one beet red face for the boy.

"Sorry for doing that out of the blue. But the opportunity was just too good to pass up." Tokage giggled.

"It's ok-"

"Meow~! What do we have going on over here?!" A female voice suddenly said from behind the trees.

'_Ah shit!'_

The students couldn't help but jump at the unexpected interruption. Hesitantly, the two of them turn their heads to the left to see none other than Pixie-Bob standing there in her pajamas with a very amused look on her face.

"Oh my, two little kittens decided to sneak off and have a bit of _private time_, eh? How naughty." The blonde haired heroine cooed.

"What do you mean "_sneak off"_? Ragdoll said that it was okay to come out here as long as we made it back by curfew." Tokage shot back, choosing to ignore the fact that she and Midoriya were just caught in the act.

"Yeah you're right about that. Tomoko sent me out here to check up on you guys. But…I certainly wasn't expecting to walk in on this."

Midoriya would've tried to plead their innocence. But there were two problems with that. The first was that his head was still spinning from actually being kissed by a girl barely a minute ago. And the second was that he had no idea how long the woman was standing there.

"Oh don't worry lovebirds, I won't mention this to anyone else. We'll just keep this between us. There's nothing wrong with two kittens having a little fun, especially when it's during their free time."

"Thank you…" Midoriya breathed out a sigh of relief.

"That being said, it's almost time for bed. So I'll walk you back to your rooms."

"Cool." Tokage shrugged before reattaching her head to her body. She may have been playing it cool on the outside, but on the inside the girl's heart was beating a hundred miles an hour.

Eventually, their night came to a premature end when the two greenettes were escorted back to their rooms where they remained for the rest of the night. While everyone had no trouble falling asleep. It took Midoriya a bit longer due to the fact that his mind was still reeling from actually having been kissed by Tokage.

It was a welcome surprise, that much was true. But the green haired boy never really imagined his first kiss coming from a disembodied head. So that was something to think about, in and of itself. However, this sudden act of affection guaranteed that he wasn't going to be falling asleep anytime soon.

* * *

**Author's Notes: A little bit of relaxation before certain things kick off next chapter. Someone mentioned to me that Midoriya seems almost unbeatable in this fic compared to his classmates, so I just wanted to remind everyone that he's definitely not. That may or may not come up in the future. Also, I wanted to show that despite being in a relationship that doesn't stop Tokage from wanting to compete with and get the upper hand on Midoriya. Plus her and Yanagi haven't partnered up that much in this fic. Which is something that I want to have happen more often. **

**1\. I had been holding off on that interaction with Shinsou for a while now. Obviously his words wouldn't sit right with Midoriya. But I also wanted to highlight how Tokage's recent experiences would compel her to put him in his place. Especially since she's seen first hand what quirkless people have to go through. I'm not 100% sure with where I want to go with his character, but I wanted to go ahead and plant those seeds in Shinsou's head sooner rather than later. **

**2\. Yes, they finally kissed. I don't want to spoil things. But expect Tokage to become a bit more daring with how she shows affection as the story goes on.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review. I'm really interested in seeing what you guys think of this fic.**


	28. Invasion

It all happened so fast….

The third day of camp started out so well for the first year students of U.A.'s hero course. Morning training was as tough as they expected. Lunch was actually pretty good. The hero course hopefuls even got a chance to have a friendly relay race against one another during the latter part of the afternoon. Not only that, but dinner was rather delicious. The day was shaping up to be their most fun one yet.

Not too long after everyone was done eating, the Wild Pussycats announced that they were all going to be participating in a "Test of Courage". Which pretty much boiled down to both classes trying to scare the piss out of each other in the middle of the woods. Class 1-B ended up being the first class to act as the scare-crew and wasted no time getting into their positions.

Tokage herself was pretty stoked to have a chance for her and Midoriya to sneak off together in the woods while no one was looking. However, Shiozaki and Kendou were already two steps ahead of her. After some deliberation, Yanagi ended up drawing the short straw and was chosen as their designated "third wheel".

Once everything got rolling, the 1-B students were admittedly having a good time torturing their fellow students. Especially Tokage herself. As it turns out, people get pretty terrified when they see a disembodied head roll from out of the bushes.

After Hagakure and Jiro finally regained what was left of their spines, the two 1-A girls began making the journey back to the front of the trail. From what they were told, there was going to be a five minute interval between each pair of students. Meaning that the trio still had some time before the next group.

However, everything changed after that….

Out of nowhere, the smell of smoke rapidly began filling the air. Curious as to what could've caused his, Tokage chose to go check it out. If there was a brushfire then they needed to hurry up and warn the teachers. However, what the girl wasn't expecting was to see Kendou, Tetsutetsu and Kodai sprinting towards them. All while carrying a passed out Honenuki and Shiozaki on their backs.

"What the hell happened to them?!" Tokage shouted at the rapidly approaching group of students.

"There's some type of gas flooding the area! Juzo and Ibara breathed it in before we knew what was going on!" Tetsutetsu frantically replied.

"What th-"

"**Attention students, this is Mandalay! Villains have invaded the camp! Everyone please return to the lodge at once!"** The voice of the brunette heroine suddenly shouted in their heads.

A collective chill went down the spines of the students after hearing that. A villain attack? All the way out here? How did they even find them? The school took extra precautions to make sure that something like this didn't happen.

Without missing a beat Midoriya took to the sky to get a better look at the area. If this gas was a result of the apparent attack then maybe he could get a bird's eye view of the situation. Unfortunately, once the green haired boy was above the tree line he got a clear view of what was going on.

Directly in front of them was an absolutely massive cloud of pink smoke that seemed to be getting larger with each passing second. And to make matters even worse, it was right where most of his class was. Midoriya and Kendou's groups were placed at the middle of the trail, which meant that they were further away than anyone else. So the gas still hadn't reached them yet.

Then to his left, was a wall of blue flames that also seemed to be expanding. Midoriya was by no means an expert on fire. But thanks to his dad's knowledge about the subject, along with following Endeavor's career for so long, he knew flames that intense couldn't occur naturally. Especially out in the forest.

To make things simple, they were boxed in. And their window of escape was closing fast.

Midoriya quickly descended back down to the ground to inform the others of what was going on around them. But halfway through his explanation a loud yell interrupted him, followed by what sounded like some sort of chainsaw. Seeing as he was the fastest one out of the group, Midoriya went to check it out while the others began moving towards where the lodge was located.

* * *

This was not good. This was definitely not good.

That was the only thing running through the minds of Awase, Shishida, Yaoyorozu and Rin as the four teenagers ran for their lives while carrying an unconscious Ragdoll with them. Barely a few seconds after the announcement from Mandalay, Awase, Shishida and Ragdoll all began their journey back to the lodge. The two 1-B boys were helping her direct traffic when the word was put out. And by coincidence, Yaoyorozu and Rin were close by them.

However, things went sideways when a gigantic, green humanoid creature attacked them from out of nowhere. To save Awase from what was sure to be a devastating blow, the green haired heroine pushed him out the way and took the full force of the attack herself which caused her to be flung into a nearby tree. Thanks to some quick reflexes on Shishida's part, the '_beast'_ quirk user was able to recover the heroine in time before the group retreated further into the woods just as the monster before them sprouted literal chainsaws and extra limbs from his back.

'_This is just like the beast that attacked us back at the USJ.' _The class rep of 1-A thought to herself as her eyes flashed back to see the monster closing the distance between them. If she remembered correctly, the thing was called a "Nomu". And based on what she heard from Kirishima and Asui, it was some type of bioengineered weapon.

"What the fuck are we going to do?!" Awase cried out, hoping that someone smarter than him would come up with a plan.

"Just keep moving!" Yaoyorozu ordered. This was no time to panic. Actually, this was the perfect time to panic. But doing something like that was not going to help them at all. She needed to come up with a plan. Something that would either get this monstrosity to stop following them. Or something that would subdue it.

Just before something could form in her mind, Rin tripped over a tree root and fell to the ground. Suddenly, everything around them seemed to slow down as the Nomu came within striking distance. Shishida tried to lunge forward and grab the boy, but he definitely wasn't going to make it in time. Only a split second before one of the chainsaws was about to make contact with Rin's head, the Nomu suddenly flew backwards and into a nearby tree with a resounding amount of force.

'_What the-'_

"Are you guys okay?!" A familiar voice called out to them from above. A sense of relief washed over their bodies when they saw a familiar patch of green hair floating in the sky.

"Midoriya-san!" Shishida howled.

"Thank fucking God, you're here!" Awase smiled. If they weren't in a life or death situation right now, he might've just given the guy a hug.

"We need to restrain this guy!" The '_telekinesis'_ user replied before everyone's attention was turned back to the Nomu. Thanks to Midoriya keeping it under his control, the thing was completely immobilized. But even a strong telekinesis quirk wasn't going to be enough.

The boy looked back down to the group and saw that the class rep of 1-A was with them. And an idea instantly popped into his head. "Yaoyorozu-san, make something big and made of metal that we can use to wrap around this guy!"

Without any reason to argue, the '_creation' _quirk user quickly produced a steel beam from her abdominal area. From what she'd seen, Midoriya had the ability to manipulate objects to a rather impressive degree. So something like this should be right up his alley. Midoriya then grabbed hold of the steel beam and wrapped it around the Nomu as tight as he could get it. He was still nowhere near Katsuragi's level when it came to reforming metal, but this was more than sufficient.

With the Nomu now under control, Midoriya lifted the rest of the group into the air and flew off to rejoin the others.

* * *

"Oh fuck, is that Ragdoll?!" Was the first thing out of Tetsutetsu's mouth once Midoriya returned with the others. The woman was unconscious and had severe bruising on the right side of her body. Whatever happened to her must've been serious.

"Please tell me that you guys know what's going on?" Awase asked the others.

Midoriya gave a brief rundown of things based on what he had seen. Which wasn't all that much to be honest. But the situation was obviously getting worse. The fires were spreading out over a wider area and for some reason the cloud of pink gas was moving towards the campsite. Which indicated that it was probably the work of someone's quirk. There was no way to check up on what was going on around them and none of them had any phone signal this far out into the woods.

"Yaoyorozu, can you make me a gas mask?" Tetsutetsu looked to the raven haired girl.

"What?"

"I'm going to find whoever is controlling this gas and take them down!"

"What, are you crazy?!" Tokage immediately scolded him. "Do you know how dangerous something like that is?!"

"Well we need to do something! Most of our class probably got caught up in the middle of that mess. Ibara and Juzo barley breathed any of that stuff in and they're out cold. Think of how bad the others could be doing right now!"

As much as Tokage wanted to argue with the boy, he was absolutely correct. The longer they stood around talking, the more danger their classmates were in. The logical side of her brain was telling her to head back to the lodge and get to safety. But she couldn't do that when her classmates' lives were in jeopardy.

"So what are we going to do?" Yanagi looked around for an answer.

"We need to split up!" Midoriya was the first to speak up.

"What?"

"Ragdoll was the only teacher this far out into the woods, so the rest probably don't know what's going on. Kan-sensei and Aizawa-sensei are back at the lodge with the remedial class and the rest of Wild Pussycats are probably dealing with villains where they are now. We also still don't know what the cause of this fire is."

"As much I don't like admitting this, Midoriya-kun's right." Kendou stated. "We need to get this gas under control and find the others. We also need to alert the teacher's to what's going on."

"So what's the plan?" Rin inquired. The Chinese boy was still visibly shaken up from earlier, but he was able to keep his nerves in check. If they managed to make it out of this alive, he was going to be sure to send Midoriya a "thank you" gift for saving his life.

"I'll go with Tetsutetsu-san to deal with the gas. I have enough fat reserves to make more masks for anyone that we find." Yaoyorozu announced.

"I'll go hunt down what the cause of the fire is." Midoriya followed up. And Tokage just as quickly made it clear that she was going with him.

After another few seconds of deliberating, the plan was set in motion. Midoriya, Tokage and Yanagi were going to check the fire and head straight back to the lodge. Tetsutetsu, Kendou, Yaoyorozu and Awase were going to find the source of gas and locate as many people as they could. And Rin, Kodai and Shishida were going to head straight to lodge to get Ragdoll, Honenuki and Shiozaki to safety.

It was only a few seconds after the group split up did the next announcement come in.

"**All students! You have permission to use your quirks to defend yourselves and your classmates!"**

* * *

A few minutes later, the trio of 1-B students landed next to the cliffside where they assumed to be the origin of the fire. Judging by how the entire area around them was already burnt out minus a few trees, they could tell that the flames had already run their course. The downside to this was that there was no indication of what started the fire. They had a pretty good feeling that it was the product of someone's quirk, just like the gas. But there was no way to be sure.

"We've wasted enough time here, let's hurry back. Tetsutetsu-kun and the others are probably going to need some help." Yanagi suggested.

"Yeah, you're right." Tokage agreed.

"Still, this is-"

***Boom!***

A massive rumbling cut Midoriya off. Before any of the students knew what to do, a few more came in quick succession of the first one. And they all seemed to be getting closer to their current position. Just when the boy was about to activate his quirk to get the two girls to safety, something in the distance caught his eye.

Not even a hundred meters from where they were standing, the boy could see someone rapidly approaching them from the east. It took him a second, but Midoriya recognized him as Mezo Shoji. The mask wearing boy from class 1-A.

"Shoji-san!" Midoriya began waving the boy down.

"Run! Run away!" He frantically shouted back while waving them off.

Tokage was confused about what was going on before a gigantic mass of dark energy suddenly bursted out from behind him while demolishing every tree in sight. Recognition set in almost instantly and the 1-B students realized that this had to be Tokoyami's quirk '_dark shadow'_. However, something was odd. The bird spirit seemed to be struggling with something. Unfortunately, the green haired girl got her answer when what could only be described as a massive wall of muscle came flying towards them like a bat out of hell.

Thankfully, Midoriya reacted just in time to move everyone safely out of the way before the object impacted the nearby cliffside. Leaving a massive crater under it.

"Oh yeah! You sure pack one hell of a punch kid! Keep on entertaining me before I kill you!" The wall of muscle suddenly hopped out of the crater to reveal a blonde haired man with a sadistic look on his face.

The 1-B students didn't even get a chance to be confused about what they were seeing before a now rampaging '_dark shadow'_ closed the distance between them and began clobbering the man into the rocks.

"Get out of there now! Tokoyami-kun's not in control right now!" The voice of Tsuyu Asui, the new vice-rep of 1-A shouted at them from atop Shoji's back. Now that they had a better picture, they could see Minrou Mineta right beside her.

Deciding to just do as they were told, the three 1-B students retreated from the current battle and joined up with the other students.

"What's going on?!" Tokage looked to the 1-A students for an answer.

"After Mandalay's message, the four of us got attacked by some of the villains, gero. Tokoyami-kun panicked and used his quirk. But as soon as he did, '_dark shadow'_ started rampaging." The frog themed girl with the scar on her face explained rather calmly.

Well if things weren't bad before, they certainly were now. Based on what Midoriya knew about Tokoyami's quirk it was stronger at night than during the day. And seeing as they were in the middle of a dense forest with nothing more than a full moon to provide any light, '_dark shadow'_ was probably in pique condition.

The boy's thoughts were interrupted when '_dark shadow'_ suddenly let out an ear splitting roar. Everyone turned their attention back to the scene of the fight where the villain was now reduced to a bloody pulp in the middle of yet another giant crater. The students briefly wondered if the guy was still even alive. But they didn't get enough time to ponder it before the shadow spirit turned its attention to them.

"**Some more challengers?!"** The beast menacingly growled towards them.

"Oh shit...run away!" Mineta cried out while clutching Shoji's shirt.

"**Not a chance!"** '_Dark Shadow'_ howled as it dashed towards them.

Midoriya doesn't really know what came over him at that moment. In fact, he would even say that his body just moved on its own. But instead of retreating like a smart person, the boy lifted his hands up and activated his quirk in the direction of their current opponent. He wasn't entirely sure whether or not his telekinesis would work on '_dark shadow'_. But now seemed like a good enough time to give it a shot.

By grace of whatever deity was looking over him, his reckless plan actually worked...mostly. Although he could indeed use his power on '_dark shadow'_ the beast was putting up more than a good fight.

"Izuku!" Tokage shouted back at the boy once she finally realized what he was doing.

"I'll hold him off! You guys go on ahead!"

"Not happening!"

Midoriya was about to double-down on his declaration but that brief lapse in focus loosed up his grip on '_dark shadow'_, causing the beast to begin thrashing even more violently.

As the other students watched this power struggle go on Tokage's mind started running wild. Midoriya could only hold that thing in place for so long. Aside from light, Tokoyami had to have some other weakness.

"Shoji, Tsu, please tell me that you guys know how to stop him." She then looked at the 1-A students.

"We have to knock him out. '_Dark Shadow'_ will disappear if Tokoyami-kun loses consciousness." The frog themed teenager bluntly responded.

That little tidbit of information was all that Tokage needed. The girl looked back over to their opponent and could clearly see Tokoyami's actual body in the middle of all that darkness. Judging by the fact that he hadn't said anything the entire time and wasn't actively trying to suppress his quirk, it was safe to assume that he was mind was somewhere else.

Without any hesitation, the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user disassembled her body into twenty pieces and made a mad dash towards the fight.

"Tokage-chan!" Yanagi called out to her.

"Izuku, keep holding him place! I'm going to try and knock Tokoyami out!"

Something like that was a lot easier said than done. Midoriya was already doing everything in his power to keep the beast from breaking free. But every couple of seconds he would lose control of one of it's limbs. One such instance just so happen to occur right as Tokage was making her approach. One of '_dark shadows'_ arms broke free and slammed into a nearby tree, sending debris flying everywhere. And Midoriya ended up getting whacked in the head by a stray branch. The force of the impact was enough to knock him to the ground.

"Midoriya-san/kun!" The others shouted simultaneously. Out of instinct, Shoji dropped Mineta and Asui to the ground and dashed towards the boy.

"**You look like you're going to be fun! I'm going to enjo-"** '_Dark Shadows'_ taunting when cut off when its entire body suddenly locked up.

From on the ground, Midoriya stood up on two shaky legs and poured every last bit of power he could into his quirk. But there were a few problems with this. The first was that he definitely just suffered a concussion. And the second was that the world around him was starting to spin. But none of that was important right now. At this moment, he was the only one who could keep his classmate under control long enough for the others to act.

On the other side of the scuffle, the adrenaline suddenly rushed through Tokage's veins. From where she was standing she could see the blood begin to leak from Midoriya's nose. Something that was a tell-tale sign that he was pushing his quirk too far. If he kept this up, then he would be in some serious trouble.

"Setsuna, hurry up and do it!" The green haired boy shouted to her.

'_What the hell am I doing just standing around?!'_ Tokage clicked her teeth. Angry at herself for freezing up at such a time.

The girl then disassembled her body into twenty pieces and sent them flying full speed towards Tokoyami's body. Thanks to Midoriya, she had a clear view of the boy and was certainly not about to waste this opportunity.

'_Sorry Tokoyami, but you're gonna have to take a nap!'_

With as much power as she could muster, Tokage slammed every piece of her body into the boy at top speed. Evidently, this reckless idea of theirs worked because Tokoyami let out a painful groan before '_dark shadow'_ suddenly disappeared. Leaving Tokoyami's unconscious body floating in the air.

With that finally over, Midoriya set the 1-A boy onto the ground before releasing his quirk. That little stunt of his was costly. Not only was his head throbbing, but his vision was blurry as well. He never tried straining his power like that before, and he certainly wasn't going to do it again if he could help it.

"Izuku, are you okay?!" Tokage yelled while grabbing onto the boy. Now that she was up close, she could see a pretty sizable gash on the left side of his forehead.

"I'm fine...but I don't think I'll be able to use my quirk for a while. I kinda overboard." He replied with a weak smile.

"Tokoyami-san's out cold." Yanagi announced. "We need to check on that villain over there too."

"D-do you think t-that he's-" Mineta's shaky voice stuttered out.

"No, gero." Asui immediately reassured him. "Even from here, I can see that he's still breathing."

"Mineta-kun, can you use some of your sticky balls to hold him in place? He may be injured, but that guy is too dangerous to just leave alone like that." Shoji looked to the diminutive student.

Right as the purple-headed teen was about to make a comment, Mandalay's voice began ringing in their heads.

"**Students...we've just identified the target of this attack. The villains are looking for Izuku Midoriya! Midoriya-kun, if you're out there please return to the lodge immediately and avoid combat if you can help it!"**

* * *

In a matter of minutes, this little adventure of theirs went from a search and rescue mission to hostage escort duty.

The last announcement from Mandalay practically threw everyone for a loop. The villains were after Midoriya, why? What could they possibly want with him? Did they know him? What were they going to do to him if they captured him? These were the questions running through their heads as they sprinted through the forest in the direction of the campsite, especially Tokage. When asked about it, Midoriya himself had no clue as to why he was being targeted.

A few minutes passed before the group of students came upon a large clearing that was a sizable distance away from the nearest fire. The situation was bad and getting worse with each passing second. Tokoyami was unconscious, Midoriya couldn't use his quirk right now, and they still had no clue what was going on with the others. From the brief look that she got of the area before they left, the only change Tokage was able to identify was that the pink smoke was no longer in the area. Which meant that Tetsutetsu and the others probably dealt with whatever was causing that gas.

"How are you doing, Midoriya-kun?" Yanagi asked in a worried tone.

"I'm fine." He answered unconvincingly.

"You are certainly _not_ fine." Tokage shot back. The mere fact that he was unable to use his powers right now and that his head wound was still bleeding was more than enough proof of that. But none of that mattered right now. The main thing on the green haired girl's mind was getting everyone back to safety.

"How far away are we from the lodge?" Shoji then asked.

"It's straight ahead, we should be there in another couple of minutes."

"Alrigh- Tokage-san behind you!"

Tokage turned her head just in time to see a flash of blonde hair appear in her vision before a metallic gleam caught her eye. Out of instinct, the girl brought her arm up to her face and was met with the painful sensation of something penetrating her forearm.

"Argh!" The girl yelled out in pain only moments before Shoji appeared right in front of her. The masked teen appeared to have pushed something away from her.

"Setsuna!" Midoriya screamed out.

'_What the hell just happened?!'_ She looked down at her arm, only to see a decently sized knife sticking out from just underneath her elbow. It took every last bit of mental willpower that Tokage had to not outright scream at the sight of this. She just got stabbed? By who?

"Aww, that's my favorite knife~! Can I have that back please?" An unfamiliar female voice groaned from in front of her.

Tokage then glanced up to see who this person was. To her surprise, it was a blonde haired girl with two messy buns on her head wearing a school uniform. Not only that, she was wearing some funky device around her neck that looked like vampire teeth.

"Who are you?!" Yanagi said in a stern voice.

"Hi, I'm Himiko Toga!" The girl greeted in a tone that was way too cheery for their liking. "I'm with the '_League of Villains'_!"

The '_League of Villains'_? Weren't those the same guys that attacked the USJ at the start of the year? What the hell were they doing out here? To their knowledge, the last time this group attacked the school they were going after All Might. So why were they now looking for Midoriya?

Before either student could get any more information out of this Toga person, the girl began squealing like an excited child.

"And _that_…" She pointed over to the green haired boy. "Is Izuku Midoriya! Oh my god, look at you. You're way cuter than in person, and you're already bleeding for me! How sweet of you!" The girl then licked her lips like she was getting ready to devour a meal.

Okay, something was definitely off about this chick. Anybody who could stab someone and then immediately call another person cute was not right in the head. Tokage was already not a fan of this girl thanks to the knife lodged in her arm. But she definitely didn't like the look that she was giving Midoriya.

"S-Setsuna…are you okay?" Midoriya asked worriedly.

The girl fiddled with her arm for a second as she tried to assess the damage. The fact that she couldn't move most of her fingers certainly wasn't good, and she was sure that a tendon in her arm was just split in two. Tokage didn't exactly know what the extent of her regeneration abilities were. She never had to worry about anything other than some small cuts and bruises. But this was the first time that she could remember sustaining an injury like this while her quirk wasn't active.

"I'll be fine." She looked back at him. Only to give a very unconvincing grin.

Yanagi decided that she was through with all this nonsense and made her move. Toga was definitely in ranger of her quirk. And judging by the fact that the girl was shorter than her and had a slender frame, it was a safe bet to assume that she weighed less than her too. Without moving her hands, the '_poltergeist'_ user activated her power and locked the blonde haired villain in place. She didn't have that much experience with controlling people since her power was a tossup in every fight. But now wasn't the time to worry about limitations.

"What the hell?!" Tokage gasped as she tried to move.

"She's pinned down. Someone go knock her out!" The grey haired teen ordered.

"I got you!" Tokage replied before holding up her left arm and shooting it out towards their enemy. However, that's when things took a major turn for the worse.

Just when her arm was about half the distance to her target, a wall of blue flames suddenly appeared and completely engulfed the girl's limb. Pain shot through her senses as Tokage watched _and_ felt her arm get incinerated right before her eyes.

"Argh, dammit!"

"Setsuna!" Midoriya then turned his head in the direction of the blast. "Another one?"

"Good grief Toga…this is what you get for not getting the job done."

Out from the nearby bushes came two new figures, much to everyone's dismay. The first was a man with jet-black hair and scarring all over his body. And the other was a man dressed in a black and gray bodysuit.

"Hey Dabi, Twice, what are you guys doing here?!" Toga cheerily inquired.

"We accomplished _our_ part of the mission and were heading back to the rally point. We just so happened to be passing by." The scarred man nonchalantly stated before turning his attention towards the group of students. "And will you look at that. Our _target_ seems to be here as well."

As shiver ran down their spines at the man's cold gaze. They had no clue who this Dabi person was, but something in their guts was telling them that they needed to retreat. They may have numbers on their sides, but they were facing three villains. Two with unknown quirks. And three members of their group were now injured.

"Asui-san, listen to me. I need you to grab Setsuna an- Asui-san?!" Midoriya shouted when he turned his head to see that the frog themed girl was gone. She was standing right behind him a moment ago and now she was missing.

"My, my, that was much too easy!" Another new voice taunted. From literally out of nowhere, a man in a white mask, top hat and trench coat suddenly appeared next to the other two villains. "You children really need to stay aware of your surroundings."

"Compress, where's Moonfish?" Dabi asked.

"That maniac bit off more than he could chew and got captured. However I, being the magnificent escape artist that I am, managed to get away in time without compromising my objective." The man now identified as Compress exclaimed before holding up a small green marble in front of him. "And lucky me, you just provided me the chance to capture a hostage."

It took all of two seconds for Midoriya to connect the dots. That man just captured Asui and used his quirk –whatever it was- to turn her into that marble. Judging by the fact that he said hostage and not victim, she could still very well be alive. But Midoriya wasn't going to wait around to find out.

"Give her back!" He shouted. The boy attempted to use his quirk, but it was no good. The only thing he got when he tried was a spike in pain in the back of his head.

"Now, now, settled down brat. No need to do anything…irresponsible." The fire quirk user calmly stated while letting blue flames dance in his left hand.

"Who are you people and what are you after?!" Tokage shouted. Hoping this question would be able to buy her some time to think of a way out of this. Not only was her right arm useless due to the knife, but her left arm was now gone.

"We're with the '_League of Villains'_, and what we're after...is _him_." The man then pointed to Midoriya.

"Why?!" Yanagi demanded.

"Our boss wants him, plain and simple."

"Give Asui-san back to us now!" Now it was Midoriya's turn to speak. He had no clue what these people wanted him for. But there were more important things to think about at the moment. One of his classmates was captured and he needed to do something about it.

What followed was a brief stare down between Midoriya and Dabi. It was very clear that the man was fully prepared to kill them based on what he just did to Tokage's arm. And something was telling him that this guy was not your ordinary villain.

While this was going on, Yanagi's mind was racing to come up with a solution. She could see the green marble clearly and it was in range of her quirk. But that was where the positives ended and the negatives began. She could try and seize the thing with her power, but what about after that?

They had villains on all sides of them except for the rear. And this Dabi character had some good amount range with his fire. The moment she attempted to take Asui back, the man could very easily burn them alive before they even had a chance to blink. On top of that, this Toga girl looked to be patiently waiting for her chance.

To put things in perspective, the grey haired girl was starting to panic. Tokage had just lost the use of her arms, Tokoyami was unconscious, Asui had just been captured and Midoriya couldn't use his quirk. The only people who could put up a real fight right now were herself, Shoji and Mineta. Shoji was strong, but she doubted that he had the speed to close the distance between either villain before one could attack. And no disrespect to Mineta, but the best his quirk could do was put some space between them and the villains. Which didn't really matter because Dabi's fire would still reach them.

"How about we make a deal?" The black haired man then proposed.

"What?" Midoriya shot back.

"We'll let your friend here go if _you_ take her place and come with us."

"What? You've lost your goddamn mind!" Tokage shouted.

"Yay! Izuku's coming with us!" Toga began cheering as she skipped over to the others.

"And if I refuse?"

"Then we kill you _and_ your friends." The man answered back. "We've already accomplished our goal here. So whether you live or die is irrelevant. But hey, why not sacrifice yourself to save your buddy here? That's what a real hero could do, right?"

No one could believe their ears. Did this guy really expect them to just believe him? Especially after he just injured one of them.

However, Midoriya's mind was in a different place. It was obvious that this guy was full of shit, but there weren't really a lot of options at the moment. Their backs were against the wall and they still had no clue what that Toga girl or the other masked guy's quirks were. He could take an educated guess and assume that the girl's was a short range ability based on the fact that she was using a knife. But the other guy, Twice, was a complete wild card.

"So…what do you say, Izuku Midoriya?"

"If you think that we're going to trad-"

"I have two conditions." Midoriya caught Tokage off. Causing not only her, but Yanagi, Shoji and Mineta to give him a set of wild looks.

"Oh?"

"Give us back Asui-san and let the rest of my friends go free. If you do that, then I'll come quietly."

"Izuku!" Tokage stared at him. Did she hear that correctly? Did Midoriya actually just use himself as a bargaining chip with a bunch of villains?

"Midoriya, you can't be serious!" Mineta shouted in an astonished tone.

"It looks like we have a deal."

"Now wait a second, Dabi. Can we take his word for it?" Compress interjected.

"He looks like a pretty honest guy to me. On top of that, it's not like he can do anything to stop us. He obviously can't use that quirk of his or else he would've already done it."

"So do we have a deal?" Midoriya then asked.

Instead of replying, Dabi gave Compress a quick glance before the masked man tossed the green marble about half the distance in between them. In response, Midoriya started walking towards them. But the boy barely made it a couple of steps before Tokage grabbed the boy by his wrist with her injured arm.

"Izuku, what the fuck do you think you're doing?!" The girl's tone was harsh and rasp. But the worst thing about this was the look on her face as she two sets of green eyes met each other.

"This is our best option right now. Hurry up and get back to the campsite so you can treat your injuries and get the others to safety." The boy tried to explain as calmly as he could.

"That's _not_ happening…."

There were a few things that Midoriya wanted to say, but there wasn't enough time. Instead, he just placed his hand on Tokage's cheek and gave her a warm smile. "I'll be fine."

"Do you even hear what you're saying right no-"

"Shoji-san, can you make sure that Setsuna and the others get to safety?"

The masked teen held his tongue before replying. He was still trying to wrap his head around all of this, but the situation was not looking good. Midoriya was literally about to throw himself to the wolves just so everyone could try and get to safety. Against every instinct in his body, Shoji moved forward and grabbed Tokage by the waist before throwing her over his shoulder.

"Shoji, what th- put me the fuck down!" Tokage protested while flailing her legs.

Midoriya simply turned back around to face the villains before advancing forward.

"Midoriya-kun…" Yanagi then spoke.

"Take Asui-san and get out of here. You should be able to carry her with your quirk."

"I'm not letting you go with them."

"Look, I'm pretty sure I'll be okay. They wouldn't go through all this trouble just to kill me. Take care of the injured first."

"Did you forget that you're injured too?"

To be fair, Midoriya really didn't have an adequate response for that. So instead he kept walking towards the villains. "Release your quirk and set Asui-san!"

"With pleasure." Compress complied before snapping his fingers. In a flash of green light, Asui suddenly appeared on the ground in front of them. Without missing a beat, Yanagi then used her quirk to grab the girl and guide her into her arms. Despite a very delirious look on her face, the vice-rep of 1-A seemed unharmed.

"You guys go now! Hurry up!"

To this day, Yanagi never quite forgave herself for going along with this ludicrous plan of his. But in that moment, all she did was click her teeth before turning the other direction and retreating towards Shoji, Mineta and a still flailing Tokage.

"Be careful."

"I will."

"What the fuck are you doing?! Izuku, no!" Was all Tokage was able to yell out before the rest of the group began fleeing into the woods. True to their word, none of the villains pursued them. Much to Midoriya's relief.

"A fine show." Compress joked.

"Yay, Izuku's coming with us! This is gonna be fun!" Toga cheered before skipping towards Midoriya and throwing her arms over his shoulders. What he wasn't expecting the girl to do was to literally lick the blood of the side of his head. "Oooh, your blood is sweet~!"

Dabi then directed his cold gaze towards Midoriya. "That was rather _heroic_…if I do say so myself."

The boy simply chose to hold his tongue. Although he was very aware of the fact that he just offered himself up to a group of villains. At the very least, his classmates had an opportunity to get away. In reality, this was the most reasonable course of action that he could come up with given the situation.

The next thing that happened was Dabi pulling a cell phone out of his back pocket and dialing a number into it. Then suddenly, a mass of dark purple mist appeared right behind him.

"Step right in…" The black haired man waved him on. Midoriya silently gulped before doing as he was told and stepping through the apparent portal.

* * *

Once Midoriya stepped through the portal he was met with quite the peculiar sight.

Instead of some dark and dingy cave in the middle of the mountains, what the boy got was a dimly lit bar. His eyes quickly scanned over the area in an attempt to get as much information as he could about his surroundings. But aside from an old television, a weird looking chair and a torn up All Might poster, there was nothing present that gave him an idea of where he was. Well, nothing except for a young man with dry skin, baby-blue hair and some type of faux hand prop on his face sitting at the bar.

In an instant, multiple other portals appeared in the room. From these pathways came a large man with brown hair carrying some kind of weapon covered by a cloth. Another man with a lizard-like appearance. And finally, a being with a smoky appearance exactly like the portals.

'_He must be the one with the teleportation quirk.'_

"Give me a status update." The blue haired man demanded. His voice sounded just as dry as his skin.

"Moonfish and Mustard appear to have been captured. I was able to recover our Nomu, but Muscular was nowhere to be found." The mistman spoke in a polite tone.

The blue haired man then turned his attention over to the main group. And Midoriya felt a chill go down his spine at the sight of a single red eye. "Did you get them?"

"We sure did." Dabi replied in a calm tone.

"Wait...them?" Midoriya then turned his gaze over to Dabi. "What do you mean by _them_?"

A sadistic smile grew on the man's face at his words. Without missing a beat, Compress suddenly pulled out another green marble from his pocket and began walking towards the large chair in the back corner of the room with multiple leather straps on it.

"Did you honestly think that you were the only one that were after?"

What happened next truly shocked Midoriya. Once Compress snapped his fingers, Katsuki Bakugou appeared right before his very eyes. He had the same dazed look on his face that Asui had but no visible injuries that he could see.

"Bakugou?!"

"Deku?!"

* * *

_~Saitama Prefecture a few hours later~_

It had been another long day for Fubuki Katsuragi and Shinya Kamihara. The two heroes were sorting through yet another stack of papers and files as they did their best to narrow down any possible leads on their investigation. Ever since the final day of their student's internship, their joint investigation with the local police department kept hitting dead end after dead end.

The first one came on the actual day of the attack. Shortly after being taken into the station for questioning, the would be bomber managed to overpower one of the guards that was in charge of watching him. Neither of the two were there when it happened. But from what they were told the man was able to grab the guard's pistol and shot himself right there in the middle of the station. This was their first major roadblock. Since the man decided to take his own life, there was absolutely no chance of getting any information out of him. The only interesting tidbit of information that did get on the man was that he happened to be quirkless.

The second major obstacle was the explosives themselves. After sending the stuff off to be analyzed, what they got back was certainly interesting. The substance the now-deceased criminal had strapped to his chest was unlike anything that had ever been seen before. In fact, the team of scientists themselves were completely baffled. Apparently, this light blue gel was synthesized in such a way that made it damn near impossible to figure out exactly what it was made of. On top of that it had four times the destructive power of dynamite, was barely one third of the weight and was practically undetectable by normal means.

Whoever the supplier was for this strange new substance, they were truly someone to be feared.

"I can't believe that we haven't turned up a single lead on this investigation." Kamihara breathed out a tired sigh after setting the stack of papers that he was holding down on the desk.

"Agreed." Katsuragi nodded. "The explosives themselves are enough of a mystery. But this guy was obviously a part of some larger group. No doubt these people are also responsible for the bombings that have been going on lately."

"Yes, it would make the most since. To think that there's a group of people out there willing to commit such heinous acts of violence. This is truly dreadful."

"It's almost like we've gone back to the twenty-first cen-"

The green haired heroine was cut off when the door to her office suddenly flew open. Standing there was Madoka Ozehana, also known as Ember. The '_flame control'_ user was panting heavily and looked to be quite disturbed. "Boss, I have bad news!"

"What is it?" Katsuragi asked the woman. Whatever it was had to be serious to have her off all people so shaken up.

"I was just scrolling through the '_Hero Network'_ when a national alert call came out. There's been an attack...and a kidnapping!"

"What?!" Both heroes said simultaneously.

"What's going on? Who's missing?" Katsuragi quickly followed up.

"It's the '_League of Villains'._..they have Midoriya!"

* * *

**Author's Notes: I'm going to be honest with you guys, I really just wanted to burn through the whole invasion part of the story. So sorry if everything that happened was hard to keep track of. But the real juicy stuff is on the way. I plan on wrapping this next part of the fic up in three chapters or less...let's see how that goes.**

**1\. Only a few changes to the course of events than in cannon. But the main things were that Ragdoll wasn't captured, and Yaoyorozu never got the chance to place a tracker on the Nomu. That may come up in the next chapter.**

**2\. Don't be too mad at Yanagi and Shoji in this fic. I really tried to make it seem like their actions were justified. And the situation wasn't exactly ideal for them. But mainly I just wanted to highlight how Yanagi froze under pressure and panicked. This will be pretty important for her character later on.**

**Like always, thank you for reading and don't be afraid to leave a review. Let me know what you guys think of this chapter. I'm really interested in any predictions that you may have.**


	29. Unveiling

Not too long after the villains left, the paramedics and firefighters had finally arrived.

Of the forty students in total, Sixteen were unconscious and in serious condition due to the gas. And one due to being knocked out. Four others were injured, those being Tokage and Tetsutetsu, Kirishima and Tsuburaba. Seventeen were unharmed, physically. And two were missing...

One of the six pro heroes that were present during the attack, Pixie-Bob, was in serious condition due to a blow to the head. Vlad King had suffered a concussion and a couple of severe burns. And Ragdoll still hadn't woken up after being slammed into a tree at full force. The green haired woman in particular suffering multiple contusions and broken bones.

As for civilians, Kota Izumi, the nephew of the pro hero Mandalay was found at the base of the nearby mountainside. Apparently the boy had fallen off a cliff and was in critical condition.

On the villains side, three were caught and arrested. Those individuals being the wanted murderer Muscular, an escaped death row inmate by name of Moonfish, and the gas villain who went by Mustard. The others vanished without a trace thanks to the warp villain.

The summer training camp that the students were all looking forward to couldn't have been more of a disaster.

* * *

The rest of night was practically a blur for Tokage. The only things that she could remember clearly were arriving back at the camp only to learn that Bakugou had also been taken by the villains. Cursing out Yanagi and Shoji for leaving Midoriya to fend for himself. And being taken over to the nearby hospital to get rushed into emergency surgery to have the knife removed from her forearm.

Never before had Tokage been more grateful for inheriting her mother's regeneration ability than she was now. As it turns out, her stab wound was already beginning to heal and the doctors were certain that she'd make a full recovery within the next 24 hours. She was worried that sustaining such a serious injury without her quirk being active may have led to some permanent damage. But now she could breathe a bit easier. Even her left arm was already a third of the way to its former glory.

At the moment, the green haired teen was laying in her hospital bed and staring up at the ceiling. It had been half a day since the attack and the morning sun had already risen over the horizon. Her father and Kayama rushed over to see her as soon as they got the news, and the two were currently downstairs in the cafeteria right now getting some much needed breakfast. It was sort of weird for the girl to see the blue haired man worry over her so much. But she was glad that he was here nonetheless.

Based on what she knew, all of her classmates that got caught up in the gas were on the floor above her and most of them were still unconscious. The only ones who were awake being Shiozaki and Honenuki. The reason for this might have been because they got the least of it before being evacuated from the area. And even then, Honenuki was still a bit out of it.

However, as worried as she was for her classmates there was one person that she truly feared for.

Midoriya had been taken. The boy literally threw himself to wolves just to give her and the others a chance to get to safety. Tokage still had no clue what those guys wanted with him. But for all she knew he could be getting tortured right now and no one would be there to save him. Part of her was angry at him for doing something so stupid. But the other was angry at herself for being a reason that he was in that position in the first place.

Just before the girl's mind could descend further into her thoughts the door to her hospital room opened up. In walked Tetsutetsu and Yanagi, and neither of them looked particularly good. If she remembered correctly they just got back from giving their statements to the police.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Her longtime friend asked in a soft tone.

"You got shot _multiple_ times and you're asking me if I'm okay?" The girl gave him a half-hearted grin before directing her attention to Yanagi. The two hadn't spoken since her little tirade a few hours ago and she defiantly owed the girl an apology. "Hey Reiko…I'm...sorry for what I said to you last night."

"Don't be." Yanagi answered in a dejected tone, definitely one that neither of the two were used to. "You were absolutely right. I was scared so I let Midoriya-kun take the fall for all of us. I panicked and let him make that decision when there was more that I could've done to stop it."

"No…" Tokage shot back, doing everything she could to hide her shame. "You did what you thought was best for everyone, including me. As much as I hate to say it...it was the most logical choice that we had, given the situation."

"Logical or not, I should've done more…"

There was a weird tension in the air after that statement. Yanagi was usually a stoic and calm person, but the way she was holding her head in shame really made Tokage sick to her stomach. Some of the things she said to her last night were more than uncalled for. And she wondered how much her words really hurt the girl. She wanted to do more to tell her that she was sorry, but for now she just decided to change subjects.

"So…you guys already gave your statements to the cops?"

"Yeah." Tetsutetsu nodded. "You're giving yours later today, right?"

"Yeah…my arms are already on the way to healing themselves completely, but the doctor wants to give me one final check before releasing me. After that, I'm heading over to the station with my dad and Aunt Nemuri tonight."

"Well I'm glad that you're doing alright. I was really worried about you last night."

"Thanks for the concern, Metalhead." She gave him a toothy smirk.

The atmosphere in the air suddenly shifted as Tetsutetsu then brought up a topic that none of them wanted to talk about. "So why do you think they were after him?"

"No idea." Tokage said dejectedly.

"The only thing we know is that they were after him, Bakugou-san and Ragdoll. According to the detective I talked to those three were the targets." Yanagi then spoke up.

Why those three were the intended victims was a complete mystery. Midoriya and Bakugou obviously had some history with each other. But did that have anything to do with it? And Ragdoll was even more confusing. Sure the Wild Pussycats were relatively famous, but why her and not someone else? All of this was way too confusing to even think about right now.

'_Just what exactly is going on? This fucking sucks! God, I hope Izuku is okay right now….'_

* * *

To say that Midoriya would rather be anywhere else in the world right now would be putting it mildly.

After the initial hour or so of his arrival to the '_League of Villains'_ base of operations, things had been rather uneventful. It didn't take long for the group of criminals to tie Bakugou down to a specially made chair and shove the two of them into some windowless room with only a single overhead light. The only consolation prize to all of this was that Midoriya had the luxury of not having any restraints being placed on his body at all. According to their kidnappers, there was no point in tying down someone who could move things with his mind.

Not like that did him much good anyway….

The boy was still unable to use his quirk. Even if he wanted to, it probably wasn't the best idea considering he still had no clue what the other members of the League were capable of. Or what their quirks were. From what he had been able to gather so far Magna, Spinner, Twice and Toga were all still unknowns. He had seen Dabi, Compress and Kurogiri use their quirks already. And from what he had heard about the attack on the school earlier this year the leader, Tomura Shigaraki, could disintegrate things at will.

The only relief to this situation so far came when Compress, the man currently watching over him and Bakugou, left his post at the behest of their leader. Finally leaving the two of them some time to figure out exactly what was going on. Neither of them had said a word to each other ever since being placed into this room. But now was as good a time as any to plan their next move.

"How did you get captured?" Were the first words out of Bakugou's mouth once the door shut. Of course Midoriya hated the fact that he was trapped in a dark room with the one person that he couldn't stand. But his personal feelings had to take a back seat.

"I let them capture me so that the others could escape." Midoriya answered matter-of-factly, having already predicted what the '_explosion'_ quirk user's reaction would be.

"You what?!" Bakugou barked at him. A look of complete bewilderment plastered on his face. "You gave up?!"

"It was the most reasonable decision that I could come with at the time...given the circumstances"

"Don't give me that shit, Deku! Are you seriously telling me that you just let these clowns capture you? Why the hell didn't you use your quirk on them? I thought you were supposed to be strong!"

"I got injured and couldn't use it at the time. Actually, I'm still not able to activate it right now. I'm pretty sure that I have a concussion." He clarified. It was the truth, his head was still pounding even at this very moment.

"After all this time, you're still just a useless loser." Bakugou scoffed.

Midoriya somehow found a way to keep his irritation down in order to continue the conversation. "What about you, how did you get captured?"

Bakugou turned his face away from him and was silent for a few moments. After letting out a very annoyed groan, he finally came clean on how he ended up in the same spot as him. "That weirdo with the top hat got the drop on me when they attacked the lodge..."

"Ah...I see."

"What's that supposed to mean, huh?!"

"Nothing."

"It doesn't matter how I got caught, something like that will never happen again. Besides, we need to come up with a plan to get out of here."

"Keep your voice down you fool. They're probably listening to us right now." Midoriya told him while looking around. The room was still pretty dark, so it was impossible to accurately tell if there were any surveillance devices.

"I know that already, you damn nerd!"

All Midoriya could do was let out an exasperated sigh. This situation was truly terrible. There was no doubt in his mind that in terms of firepower, he and Bakugou could break out of this place once his quirk returned. It might even be easy. But there were still too many unknowns. For all he knew they could be anywhere in Japan right now. Hell, depending on how powerful Kurogiri's quirk was they might not even be in Japan at all.

The boy's mind then wandered off and started to think about how things were going outside. No doubt his mother must've been a wreck. She more than likely received word that he was kidnapped by now. And knowing her, she was on the verge of a breakdown. He promised her that he would never go missing again after the last time, but it looks like he couldn't uphold his end of the deal.

The next thing his mind flashed to was Tokage. The look on the girl's face when he told her to go on without him hurt. More than it probably should have. And her screams for the others to go back and stop him from giving himself up was still ringing in his ears. He really needed to find a way to make up for worrying her so much.

Right as Midoriya was about to speak, the door to the room suddenly flew open. The two students winced for a moment at the sudden flood of light. But after their vision cleared, they could see Tomura Shigaraki and Kurogiri standing in the doorway.

"Sorry for the...lack of accommodations. But we needed to get some things in order." The blue haired man spoke in a dry tone.

"What do you want, Fuckface?!" Bakugou inquired impolitely.

"My, my, that's quite some colorful language for an aspiring hero." He smiled. "But sorry, we're not here for you right now...we're here for _him_." Shigaraki then pointed to Midoriya.

"Me?" The green haired boy failed to hide his surprise. Whatever they wanted couldn't have been good.

"Yes, _Master_ has been wanting to talk to you for some time now."

"Master?" Bakugou immediately questioned. "So you're not the one in charge? Tch...figures. A pasty-faced loser like you doesn't even look smart enough to be calling the shots."

Shigaraki chose to ignore those words for the time being and fight off his natural urge to turn the boy into dust. After all, it wasn't such a good idea to kill the hostage you wasted so much effort in capturing. Instead he just turned his attention back to Midoriya. "Let's go."

Seeing as his options were to either comply or get turned into a pile of dust, Midoriya chose the smarter of the two and stood up from his seat. He still had their doubts about them taking his life or Bakugou's after going through all the trouble of capturing him.

Besides, maybe this would give him an opportunity to learn more about his enemies. Like Bakugou, he too thought that Shigaraki was the ringleader of this group. But if he wasn't then this might be his only chance to learn about this "Master" person. Possibly even find out if he had any weaknesses that could be exploited.

Without any warning Kurogiri created another portal and directed him to step through it. All Midoriya could do was give a silent gulp before crossing the threshold into the darkness.

"Where the hell did you take him?!" Bakugou inquired.

"He and Master have a bit of..._catching up_ to do. But don't worry, he'll be fine." The blue haired man smiled creepily under his mask.

Catching up...what the hell did that mean? Did Deku know who this "Master" person was? Was that the reason why he was taken? Something about the way this smug bastard said that didn't sit right with Bakugou. Like there was something more to it than that. '_Don't tell me shitty Deku got himself mixed up with a bunch of villains.'_ He wondered before Twice and Dabi came into the room.

"Now that we have that handled...how about the two of us have a little chat, Katsuki Bakugou…."

* * *

Moments after walking through the portal, Midoriya once again found himself in an unfamiliar location. Except this one was drastically different from the last. The place where he currently stood was an even darker and more dreary place than the bar. All around him were metal tables, computer monitors and what looked like used medical equipment. Wherever he was, it was ten times scarier.

'_What is this place?'_

"My apologies, Midoriya. I do hope that Tomura wasn't too rough with you."

All of a sudden the boy felt something that he had never experienced before. An almost overwhelming sense of dread washed over his body and the hairs on the back of his neck instantly stood on end. He didn't even need to turn around to know that whoever the person was that owned that voice, they were something to be feared. However, for some reason he felt like he recognized it from somewhere.

Very slowly Midoriya rotated his body and mentally prepared himself for the worst. He wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but he had to steal his nerves either way.

The moment he fully turned around, he was absolutely confused by what he saw. There, roughly five or six meters in front of him, was a man. But not some ordinary looking man, one with a bizarre appearance even by today's standards. He didn't really know how to describe it, but the top half of his head was drastically different than the rest. Almost like one gigantic scar. He was sitting in a large leather chair with multiple tubes and wires coming out of various parts of his body.

"Forgive me for my less-than-stellar appearance. I may be in marginally better shape than I was the last time that we spoke. However, these old bones of mine _do_ need their rest." The man continued with a slight smile on his face.

"W-w-who are you?" The boy asked nervously. This was odd, he hadn't been in this person's presence for more than fifteen seconds and he could practically feel power radiating off his body.

"Ah yes...I did have to _alter_ your memory after our last encounter, do forgive me. But you can never be too careful these days."

"Our l-last encounter...what are y-you talking about? I've...I've never met you before in my life." Midoriya then said.

"I will explain everything shortly. After all, the two of us do have quite a bit of catching up to do." The man continued in a soft but still ominous tone. "But before that, please tell me...have you been enjoying that quirk of yours? I was a bit sad to part ways with it. But if it's been to your liking, then I have no reason to complain…."

* * *

It took Fubuki Katsuragi all of forty-five minutes to make over to the Central Tokyo Police Department once she received the call from Detective Naomosa Tsukauchi.

Ever since the attack last night on the U.A. students, there had been no leads on what was going on outside of getting the injured children to safety. As happy as she was that no one ended up dying as a result of the chaos, her mind was in a completely different place right now. Midoriya was missing and she had no clue what he could be going through right now.

Based on the information that she had been given prior to walking into the building, this '_League of Villains'_ was no joke. Their ranks included a now-captured murderer by the name of Muscular. The death row inmate, Moonfish. Who was the same serial cannibal that her own sister captured a few years ago. And if that wasn't bad enough, they were rumored to have connections to the '_Hero Killer'_. The idea that her protégé was in their clutches made her stomach churn.

The moment Katsuragi walked through the large wooden doors of the conference room she was greeted with a veritable "who's who" of heroes from around the country. Edgeshot, Endeavor, Gang Orca, Best Jeanist, Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady and Tiger were the first people that she noticed.

Her eyes then scanned across the room to see who else was present. Sitting near the back corner was Ragdoll, who had a massive cast on her right arm. Next to her was an older hero in a white and yellow suit that she didn't recognize. And sitting near the head of the table next to the detective was none other All Might himself. For a second, the woman had to wonder whether or not she was at a strategy meeting or the national ranking ceremony.

"Blizzard, thank you for showing up on such short notice." Tsukauchi greeted the woman as he stood up from his seat and went over to shake her hand.

"What is _she_ doing here?" A very obviously displeased Endeavor inquired.

"My student was just kidnapped. Why wouldn't I be here?" She countered.

It was no secret that Katsuragi wasn't the number two hero's favorite person in the world. Her sister had openly disrespected him in the public eye more than a few times when she was still alive. And they were only a few months removed from one of his most valuable sidekicks ditching his agency for hers. Needless to say, the man had a grudge against her that she didn't feel like dealing with right now.

"Ah yes, that boy is your brother isn't he?"

Seriously, how many people were going to ask her that? It was bad enough that Ozehana and a few of the heroes at her agency kept joking about it. But the fact that Endeavor of all people said it rubbed her the wrong way. The last thing she wanted was for Midoriya to get dragged into this nonsense.

"The two of you can hash out whatever problem you have later. We need to get started, there are lives at stake." Edgeshot interjected, giving Katsuragi a knowing look.

"Yes, indeed."

The group of heroes and police officers sat down in their seats and waited for the briefing to begin. Thankfully, it didn't take long to get down to business. Which was good considering the time crunch that they were on.

"As everyone knows, the attack on the Wild Pussycat's property last night was meant to target and capture three individuals. Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugou and Tomoko Shiretoko." Tsukauchi began, only for everyone in the room to turn their attention over the green haired woman currently dressed in street clothes. Katsuragi heard that she had been injured in the attack. And considering her appearance, she was lucky to only have a broken arm.

"The group known as the '_League of Villains' _was able to capture both Midoriya and Bakugou before retreating. We still have yet to determine why these specific people were targeted."

"How did they get captured?" Best Jeanist raised his hand. "Bakugou-kun isn't someone that you can get the drop on very easily. And from what I've seen, Midoriya-san is quite the powerhouse himself."

"The testimony that the students and teachers have given so far tells us that Bakugou was taken sometime during the assault by Moonfish and the flame quirk user, Dabi. It probably happened when everyone was distracted. As for Midoriya…he willingly gave himself up to the villains to buy some of his classmates time to escape and get some injured students to safety. Apparently he was also injured and wasn't able to use his quirk at the time."

"He what?!" Katsuragi blurted out. Did she hear that correctly? Midoriya actually surrendered himself to that group? Not only that, but if he was injured badly enough to where he couldn't use his quirk then that meant that he probably had a concussion or worse.

"Yes, apparently they were in a no-win situation and the boy chose to just bite the bullet. They had three injured students with their group. One of which had a knife lodged in her arm." Tiger added.

"Save that information for later." Gang Orca stated. "Do we have any idea on how to locate them? The longer we wait, the more danger they could be in."

"Ragdoll, will you please?" The detective then motioned over to the '_search'_ quirk user.

"Of course." The woman stood up from her seat and approached the table. "As you all know, my quirk is '_search'_. I can track the location and weakness of anyone that I "tag" with it."

"Okay…" Mt. Lady gave her a questioning look.

"The benefit to this is that it _doesn't_ turn off when I lose consciousness. It only deactivates when I want it to. And as of right now, I still have every last one of the students from the camp tagged. That includes Midoriya-kun and Bakugou-kun."

"Are you serious?" Kamui woods looked to the woman with bewilderment. Ragdoll's quirk was certainly useful for a rescue hero. But he never imagined that it was so powerful.

"So you know where they are then?"

"Yes and no..." The woman shook her head. "My quirk is limited by distance. And they're too far away from me to give an exact location. However, I do know the general direction and distance. The closer I am to them, the more exact my quirk can get. Right now, they're about seventy kilometers southwest of where we are now."

'_That's in the area of Kanagawa prefecture.'_ Everyone thought.

"So what are waiting around for?" Endeavor said loudly.

Tsukauchi had no trouble explaining the plan as it currently stood. "Ragdoll, Tiger and a few detectives are going to scout the area after this meeting. Once they have an accurate assessment of the locations, we'll move out immediately."

"Locations?" Edgeshot quirked an eyebrow.

"That's right." The detective then nodded. "A couple of hours ago, Midoriya moved to a different location roughly five kilometers away from Bakugou in a matter of seconds. They have a warp gate on their side so it makes sense why it was so abrupt."

"Any more information than that?" The old man in the white and yellow suit asked. Katsuragi could swear that she knew him from somewhere.

"They're both still alive, but that's all I can tell from so far away." Ragdoll said in a solemn tone.

"If everything goes as planned the rescue operation will begin tonight. Until then, the rest of us will remain on standby and wait for the word from Tiger and Ragdoll. Once we have a good idea of what we're heading into we'll split up into two teams and assault both locations." Tsukauchi announced.

With no complaints from the heroes, the group quickly dispersed to begin their necessary preparations. In times like these it was best to have a small group of heavy hitters who knew how to handle themselves. And with everyone present, they were confident that they would be able to get the job done.

Once the rest of the heroes finally left the conference room, Yagi, Tsukauchi and Sorahiko were the only three to remain.

"So...what are we going to do about the boy?" The elderly hero looked to the other two.

"We still don't know exactly what is going on over there. For all we know, they might have just separated the two of them because they both have top-level quirks. It makes sense given their strength." The detective replied.

Yagi simply chose to stay silent. He had his own theories, but none of them could be proven until he saw things with his own eyes. After hearing about what happened back at the camp, the blonde haired man was now having doubts about his earlier assumptions.

"In any case, our top priority is to rescue them. If Midoriya is working with them, then we'll find out once we start the operation."

"This is turning out to be one giant mess." Sorahiko scoffed before making his own exit. "I just hope that we can solve this without any unnecessary complications."

* * *

_~2 Years Ago~_

It was a normal midsummer night in Saitama Prefecture. Business was booming, the citizens were out enjoying themselves and the general atmosphere was one of peace and tranquility. Nowadays people barely had any cause for alarm, especially since their town was voted the second safest prefecture in all of Japan only a few days ago. And a large part of that was due to a certain green haired heroine who was known for keeping the streets clean and watching over them.

"I already told you Lily, I don't give a damn if she is the President of the HPSC! I'm _not _going to that goddamn ranking ceremony!" Tatsumaki Katsuragi, the current number four heroine, shouted into her phone at her assistant.

"_But ma'am, y-you've already missed the last three-"_

"And I'm skipping out on this one too! I don't get why she even bothered asking in the first place."

"_T-Tatsumaki-san, please. The President is going to be very upset if you don't show up again."_

"What is she going to do, revoke my hero license?!" The diminutive woman laughed smugly as she zipped through the air on her way back to her agency.

On the other end of the line, Lily just let out a defeated sigh. She was thankful to Fubuki for landing her this new job, but dealing with her friend's sister was an absolute nightmare. "_I understand ma'am, I will inform the HPSC that you will not be attending the ceremony again."_

"Good...I have better things to do than waste my time standing on some stage with a bunch of old idiots and glory hogs." She said in a satisfied tone before changing subjects. "Now, where's Fubuki? Her shift should be over by now and she isn't answering her phone."

"_Fubuki-san hasn't returned yet, ma'am."_

"Don't tell me that she's still pouting after I saved her ass _again_ this morning? Seriously, that girl needs to learn to not overestimate herself so damn much." The two sisters had a pretty heated argument earlier that day after Tatsumaki came to Fubuki's aid. And the younger sibling pretty much took off after that to do God knows what.

"_We haven't heard from her since this morning."_

"Hmph!" Tatsumaki scoffed. "Well if she shows up before I get back, tell her that I'm going to shove my foot up her ass for being such a damn nuisance! Fifteenth ranked hero or not, she's still my _little_ sister."

"_Y-yes ma'am…."_

Deciding that there was nothing more that needed to be said, the '_psychokinesis'_ user ended the phone call and continued soaring through the night sky. She had a particularly long day today and still had to submit her report to the police department after capturing that maniac cannibal, Moonfish last week.

Just when Tatsumaki rounded the next building, a frantic scream from below caught her attention.

"Help! Please somebody, help!"

'_God dammit, just when my shift was about to end.'_ The woman cursed her luck. She quickly shook away the thought and went to go investigate. No matter how tired or annoyed they were, a hero still had to do their duty. And she wasn't about to ignore someone in need.

A few seconds later, Tatsumaki found herself in the middle of a dark alleyway where the scream originated from. However...there was one little problem, no one was there. The woman was absolutely certain that she heard the yelling from right where she was levitating. But the only thing that she could see was a pile of trash and some discarded boxes.

"Hello! Is anyone over her- Bleh!"

All of a sudden, Tatsumaki was caught off guard some foul smelling black liquid erupted from her own mouth. The green haired woman didn't even have enough time to think before her entire body was surrounded by darkness.

'_What the hell is this?!'_

\- ( o ) -

As quickly as it came, the black liquid that enveloped the woman dissipated. Literally leaving her with a bad taste in her mouth. Tatsumaki had no clue what the hell was going on. But whoever was responsible for this was going to pay the price.

"As I said Doctor, I may have only acquired this one yesterday but I already have a pretty good mastery over it." A cold and ominous voice suddenly said.

"I would agree, Master." Another replied.

The woman quickly looked up to figure out what was going on and was shocked to see that she was no longer in the alleyway. Instead, she was in some dark building surrounded by metal tables and computer monitors. And in front of her was some weird looking man with tubes sticking out from various places in his body sitting in a large chair.

"Who are you?! And what the hell is going on here?!"

"It's nice to meet you, Tornado. It's not everyday that I get to meet a famous hero such as yourself." The mysterious figure replied smugly.

"I asked you a question, potato hea- Argh!"

Without any warning, these strange black tentacles shot out of the man's hand and buried themselves into the woman's sternum. The next thing Tatsumaki felt was a surge of electricity running through her body, along with the sensation that her brain was on fire. This pain lasted only for a few seconds before coming to an abrupt halt. After that the tentacles quickly retracted, leaving five gaping holes in the woman's body.

"Yes...quite powerful indeed. Exactly what I expected from a top ranked hero." The man said in a satisfied tone.

Years of training and experience kicked in and Tatsumaki instantly took an offensive stance. She didn't know who this guy was but one thing was absolutely clear to her, he was dangerous. She was in a negative situation and in her opinion it was kill or be killed.

"I don't know who you are, bitch. But you won't live long enough to regret ever crossing paths with the Terrible Tornado!" The number four heroine shouted with vigor as she activated her quirk with the full intention snapping this guy's neck.

Only something was wrong, her quirk didn't activate….

'_What the hell?'_ She thought to herself as she tried once again to use her powers. Only to receive the same result as before. Something was definitely wrong, aside from the holes in her chest her body felt...off.

"What the hell did you just do to me you son of a-"

***Slice!***

The last thing Tatsumaki's eyes ever saw was the image of her headless body hitting the floor in front of her. In an instant, everything went dark and the world around her became ice cold. Unfortunately, this was the last day that anyone would ever see the number four heroine alive….

* * *

**Author's Notes: Wow, well this escalated rather quickly…. I think it's been blatantly obvious for the entire story that Midoriya has Tatsumaki's quirk. I haven't exactly been hiding. In fact, I'm still confused on how some people came to the conclusion that Inko herself might actually be Tatsumaki. But that's neither here nor there.**

**1\. Midoriya's backstory is going to be split up into two main parts. One before meeting AfO, and one after receiving his quirk. But part two is only relevant for the next major conflict of this story.**

**2\. No, the students will not have a rescue squad of their own since Yaoyorozu never placed a tracker on that Nomu. They're all just going to have to sit and wait for things to happen. However, since Ragdoll was never captured the heroes will still be able to locate their missing students. And a lot faster now since they can get precise locations and intell much faster.**

**3\. For all those wondering, yes Kota did get thrown off the cliff by Muscular. However, I assure you that he's gonna make a full recovery and will live out the rest of his days comfortably. So fear not, I didn't kill him off.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment or review. I'm really interested in seeing your predictions on what's going to happen next.**


	30. Izuku Midoriya, The Origin: Part 1

"W-what are you talking about?" Were the very first words out of Midoriya's mouth. "Why do you care about my quirk?"

The unidentified man sitting before him gave out a slight chuckle before responding. "I'm interested in hearing about how you've acclimated to it. That '_telekinesis'_ of yours is a particularly tricky one to master."

"I-I…don't understand." The boy countered. "Who are you? And what do you want from me?"

Under normal circumstances, All for One would've had a little bit of fun toying with the boy for a few more minutes. But the elderly man decided to have mercy on the child today and get straight to the point. After all, there were more interesting things to get to.

"Before I answer your questions my boy, do you mind if _I_ ask you a question?"

"W-what?"

"Your memories from the time you left home. Are they still a bit foggy?"

"How did you-"

If there was a state beyond confusion, then that is exactly what Midoriya was feeling right now. Who was this guy? Why was he acting so familiar with him? Why did he ask him about his quirk? And how exactly did he know that his memory about his time away from home wasn't all there.

Just like he told Tokage a while ago, a lot of that time is still one giant blur. It was something that he could never recollect, no matter how hard he tried. Obviously this man sitting before him had something to do with it. Or he was connected with it somehow. But what role did he have to play in this?

"Once again I have to apologize for deceiving in such a way, my boy. I simply didn't want to run the risk of anyone finding out about my hideout at the time. However, I supposed that now is a good time to put the missing pieces back together for you."

"Who…are…you-"

Without warning, a single black tentacle shot out of the man's hand and wrapped itself around Midoriya's head. Just when the boy was about to try and remove the appendage from his body a jolt of electricity surged through his veins. In an instant, it felt like a fog was lifted from his mind and the world around him suddenly became blank.

* * *

Life truly wasn't fair….

These were the words that repeated themselves in young Izuku Midoriya's mind, over and over again like a broken record scratching away at his sanity. It was a fact of reality that he learned at a very early age but tried to fight as much as he could. Everyday he would wake up with just the slightest bit of optimism that this one was going to be better than the last, only to have his expectations crushed immediately after. And today was no different.

What started out as a normal day quickly went from mediocre, to bad, to worse. All in the span of a couple of hours. A dramatic series of unfortunate events finally culminating into having his soul absolutely crushed by the one person that he looked up to most.

There was an old saying about never meeting your idols, and apparently it was true. In all honesty, it was an answer that Midoriya was expecting to hear. But that didn't stop him from hoping that maybe the "hero of heroes" was different from everyone else.

In the grand scheme of things, All Might's words were just the final straw that broke the camel's back. It wasn't even the realization that his dream will never come true. It was a lot more than that….

It was the laughter, the jokes, the pitying stares, the snide remarks, the less-than-stellar treatment. It was the realization that he was truly worthless in a world where people like him were obsolete. Becoming a hero wasn't even the least of his worries, being able to find a job and live a comfortable life might as well have been a far off dream for him. All because he lacked what eighty percent of the world did not, a quirk. An in-born trait that granted individuals special abilities far beyond that of a normal human being. Something that determined one's value as a person. Or his case, one's _lack_ of value.

To Midoriya, today could easily be considered the second worst day of his life. Only after the day that he was officially diagnosed as quirkless.

The boy doesn't really remember what happened after his talk with the number one hero. His body had switched to autopilot and his mind became clouded. He briefly recalled something about an explosion happening nearby, but that was in the opposite direction in which he was travelling. But there was one thing that was absolutely clear in his mind...he needed to get away.

It was all too much. He just couldn't take it anymore. School, home, life, it was all just a repetitive cycle of pain and agony that he just couldn't go through any more. Maybe he was finally starting to lose it. Maybe his childhood friend turned bully telling him to jump off the roof of the school made a little too much sense. Maybe it was the look on his mother's face each and everyday as he lied to her to keep her from worrying about him. Maybe it was the growing number of scars on the right side of his abdomen that symbolized his steadily deteriorating state of mind.

Maybe all of these were the factors that contributed to his brash decision to run to the train station and board the first train that he could to get away from everything. It didn't matter to him where it went. As long as it was far away from where he was now, then that would be more than enough.

* * *

_~Saitama Prefecture~_

A little over a week had passed ever since that fateful day. And in that time the reality of the situation had already set in for Izuku Midoriya.

His brash and impulsive decision to leave everything behind was not one that he fully considered before taking the plunge. But in his mind, there was really no other way. To Midoriya, continuing on with his mediocre existence just wasn't an option. And against his better judgement he chose to stick with his choice.

The first couple of days weren't too bad. He managed to get by sleeping in the train station and using what little money he had on him to keep himself fed. But things quickly took a turn for the worst, especially in the last three days.

With the last of his money completely dried up, Midoriya found himself resorting to dumpster diving and hiding out behind restaurants in hopes of finding something to eat for the day. And if that wasn't bad enough, finding a relatively comfortable place to sleep was just as difficult. The only real positive out of this entire situation was the fact that he could spend a good portion of his day at the public library before being told to leave at closing time. There he would use his time to read some books and charge his cellphone. Which currently had over two hundred missed calls and text messages from his mother.

As much as it pained him to put the green haired woman through all of this, he knew it was for the best. Eventually she'll forget about him and finally live the life that she deserved. One free of having to deal with raising a defective son that had no use to the world. Or at least that's what he hoped.

-(o)-

On one particular night Midoriya found himself rushing to find shelter from a torrential downpour that seemingly came out of nowhere.

The quirkless boy had just lucked out and found a white, hooded sweatshirt that someone left in the nearby park. The article of clothing even had about five hundred yen stuffed into its main pocket. He tried to use the money at a local convenience store but was kicked out due to his less-than-stellar appearance. It had literally been days since the last time he showered and even he could see the thin layer of dirt starting to cover his body and clothes.

With the rain coming down harder and harder with each passing second, Midoriya finally found a small ray of hope in the form of an abandoned looking building a little further down the street. He had passed by the place a couple of times during the last few days and noticed how there was pretty much no activity either in or outside of it. Even now, not a single soul could be seen near the premise.

Seeing as this was his best option to stay dry, Midoriya quickly padded the wet ground over to the building and began searching for any possible ways inside. He scoured the perimeter for a good two minutes as he tried to find some type of opening.

'_Maybe I should just try and go in through a window.'_ He thought to himself. Only to immediately shake away the thought. Although it was tempting, breaking through a window was a bit further than he was willing to go right now. He was hoping for the possibility that maybe one of the doors was unlocked, but that didn't look like the case.

For a brief moment, Midoriya paused as he squeezed himself underneath a shallow door frame in an attempt to minimize his exposure to the rain. There was only enough space for him to stand, which forced him to lean up against the uncomfortable concrete wall.

As much as he didn't want to admit, he was just about at his breaking point. These last few days living on the streets had been rough. Sure there were probably other people out there who were in way worse positions than he was right now. But that didn't stop him from feeling terrible about himself.

The quirkless boy took this time to think back to how he ended up here. Wet, hungry and alone while trying to shield himself from the elements. His mind flashed back to all the ridicule and torment he had suffered each and every day. And no matter how much he tried to keep to himself and lay low, people would find any excuse in the book to make his life hell.

If he was being completely honest, Izuku Midoriya hated his life. He hated it with every fiber of his being. Each and every day he would wake up disappointed that whatever deity was out there decided to plague him with another sunrise. He tried to be optimistic about things, but there was only so much that could handle. Especially when your value as a human being and your very existence was constantly called into question.

He hated how unfair the world was to him, simply for something that was completely out of his control. Meanwhile people like Kacchan, someone who was not a nice person by any stretch of the imagination, were put on a pedestal and praised for having been born lucky. It was times like this where Izuku truly wondered if he was paying off the sins of some previous life of his. Or if he might have actually been cursed.

Yeah…_cursed_, that was probably the most appropriate word that he could use. He was a defective boy cursed to be powerless in a world where power was everything. Condemned to a life of mediocrity and guaranteed hardship simply for something that was out of his control.

Midoriya's mind further descended into this line of thinking as time went on. With each passing second becoming more painful than the last. Eventually, he used what little willpower he had left to shake the water out of his hair and wipe the tears from his face.

"I can't stay here or else I'll get sick. I need to try and find somewhere dr- Blegh!"

All of a sudden, some foul smelling black liquid erupted from his mouth. This random occurrence immediately caused the green haired boy to panic. Unfortunately for him, Midoriya didn't have enough time to try and get himself out of this situation before he was consumed by darkness.

-(o)-

Just as quickly as it came, the darkness around Midoriya vanished. Whatever it was that came over him left an absolutely horrendous taste in his mouth. And the sudden shock of it was enough to force the frail teen to his knees and begin coughing.

"Well...what do we have here?" A voice suddenly said from not too far behind him.

Once the initial shock finally passed over, Midoriya immediately turned around in the direction that he heard the voice. And for a split second he was able to take in his surroundings. The boy found himself inside of a dimly lit room with large tables and filing cabinets along the walls. But what stuck out to him the most was right in front of him. There, on the opposite wall sat a person. Someone with a large frame who appeared to be dressed in a nice suit.

"W-w-who are y-you…." Midoriya didn't even get a chance to finish his inquiry before an overwhelming amount of fatigue came over him and the world around him faded to darkness.

"It appears that we have a visitor." The man whose features were covered by a dark shadow said in an amused tone to Kurogiri and the Doctor.

"Do you think that he could be a spy, sir?"

"He was snooping around the building for the last few minutes. I find it hard to believe that it was just a coincidence."

Spy or not, the man known as "All for One" didn't take kindly to unwanted guests poking their noses around his current hideout. From his seat, he looked over the green haired individual for a couple of seconds. He was young, thin, and judging by the backpack that he was wearing he might be a student of some kind. But despite his plain and innocent appearance, decades of experience told the man that he should never judge a book by its cover. Especially when that book could be aiding your enemies.

"Doctor, search his bag and see if there's anything of value in it. Kurogiri, place him on that table over there so that I can search his memories." The man ordered.

Like two well trained dogs, both men complied with the order without a moment's delay. The unnamed doctor quickly began rummaging through the boy's belongings while the humanoid mist set him on top of the nearest table that was next to a large tank. All for One had no clue who this person was or what he was doing poking around his hideout, but he was going to find out in a matter of seconds.

The elderly man stood up from his chair and began walking towards the boy's unconscious body. He was merely a few steps away when the doctor suddenly spoke up.

"Interesting…"

"What is it, Doctor?" Kurogiri then asked.

"This notebook…it appears as though the boy has an interest in heroes and their quirks. This book contains information on heroes with rather impressive detail."

"Is that so?" All for One said in a curious tone. His suspicions were low before, but now they were slightly elevated. "Let me see that."

The doctor complied and placed the item into his master's hand. Despite not having an actual set of eyes anymore, the elderly man still possessed an echolocation quirk that he acquired some time last year. When focused, this specific ability allowed him to read. So long as the words were written down on the page, he would be able to see them.

For about a minute he scanned over the pages and a slight smirk appeared on his face. Right in front of him was valuable information on many top ranked and local heroes that would normally take years to acquire. There was even a section on Endeavor's patrol habits depending on the weather.

'_Interesting indeed….'_ He thought to himself before handing the book over to Kurogiri. "Scan this and put it into the doctor's server. We'll verify whether or not the information is true once I'm done with him."

Without so much as a word, the mist-man gave a slight bow before disappearing to complete his given task, leaving the All for One to begin his investigation. The man wasted no time in hovering over the boy's body and placing a hand atop his head.

"**Chronicle."** He spoke as the world inside of his mind began to change. Forming a pathway into the boy's memories. In times like this it was best to start with the most recent events and work backwards. And something told him that this boy had quite the interesting story.

Images of this child's life began running through vision like a film reel. What All for One hadn't expected was for him to be a common street vagrant. It was a rarity for someone of his age to be living such a life, but nothing that he hadn't seen before. As the days went by, All for One made a point to take note of anything that he deemed important. Movement patterns, habits, communications. Anything that could be used as valuable information.

It didn't take long before the man grew bored of this. Apparently, his hunch was wrong and the boy was nothing more than a middle schooler who ran away from home. Just when he was about to release the effects of '_chronicle'_ something caught his eye. Actually it wasn't something, more like someone. And that someone was a person that he recognized all too well.

'_All Might.'_

As if he were operating a remote control to a television, the man paused and played the scene at normal speed, making sure to analyze every moment of the encounter. There he watched his foe effortlessly save this child from certain death by the hands of some low-level thug with a transformation quirk. He wondered what kind of condition the blonde haired man was in following their last battle, and here he was getting a firsthand account of it.

Then he saw it, all of it. He watched the number one hero deflate like a balloon and then reveal that he was only able to maintain his hero form for a paltry three hours a day. He watched the boy ask the hero in a skittish tone about his chances of becoming just like him. He witnessed the heartbreak as the boy watched the blonde haired man give him some "words of wisdom" before walking through the door at the top of the building.

Although he wasn't actually able to discern what the boy was thinking, he could still sense the emotions that he was feeling during that time. And all of them were pointing to one thing…despair. Hatred, disgust, agony, distress. All feelings that one achieves when they've reached the bottom of the abyss. Ones that could easily be manipulated if nurtured properly.

It was something that he had seen countless times amongst his followers over the many years that he had lived. And it was something that could be exploited given time and patience. Deciding to delve a little deeper, All for One went further into the boy's memories to gather more information. And as he did so, a brilliant idea came to mind. One that would prove to be most entertaining for him.

"Sir?"

"Well Doctor, it appears as though fate has smiled upon me once again..."

-(o)-

When Midoriya finally came to, he found himself in a dramatically different place than he was before. His surroundings were replaced by a lavish looking room with antique paintings and decorations one would only find in a museum.

'_What the hell happened?'_ He asked himself as the blurriness faded from his vision.

"Forgive me, Izuku Midoriya. I do apologize for having to knock you out. But you can never be too careful these days." The same mechanical voice from before spoke to him.

Out of instinct Midoriya jumped back, only to find himself sitting on a comfortable red sofa next to a wall. He then lifted his head up to get a look at who was addressing him. Sitting directly across at a large desk was quite the peculiar sight. It was the same man from before. Except now he was able to fully take in his appearance. He was tall, well built and sporting a mask with multiple pipes running through it.

"No need to be afraid, young one. I guarantee that no harm will come to you here."

"W-who are you?! Where am I?!" Midoriya blurted out in a frantic tone.

"I should be asking you the same thing, child. After all..._you_ were the one lurking around my property in the middle of the night."

Midoriya bit his tongue before responding. The man sitting in front of him had a point. He was poking around somewhere that he shouldn't have been. Of course he had no clue that anyone was occupying the building. But that didn't take away from the fact that he tired breaking into the place.

"I-I'm sorry!" He apologized, more out of reflex than anything else.

"Don't worry, my boy. I'm not angry at all. Oh...where are my manners? Would you like some tea?" The man politely asked as he began pouring a cup from the pot on his right side.

"U-um...y-y-yes." Midoriya nervously nodded before accepting the offer. Something in the back of his mind told him that he shouldn't drink it seeing as he had no clue what was in it. So for the time being he simply held the cup in his hands.

"Allow me to properly introduce myself, my name is Yamamoto. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Midoriya wasn't a skeptical person by nature, but he doubted that was the man's real name. Yet given the situation that he was in, he wasn't dumb enough to call him out on it. "It's n-nice to meet you too, sir."

"So...would you care to explain why a young man like yourself is wandering the streets at this late hour? It's rather dreadful out there."

"I-I...I was looking to get out of the rain. I'm sorry, I d-didn't know that anyone lived here."

"As I said before, it's no trouble at all." All for One told him. It was painfully clear that the boy was the nervous type, you didn't even need to peek into his mind to come to that conclusion. However, this would only benefit him more. In situations like this it's best to make a person as comfortable as possible. Not enough to where they would completely let their guard down. But enough to where they would be more willing to engage in conversation.

"You see, I don't get many visitors these days. I guess you could say that I'm somewhat of a recluse. My current condition prevents me from interacting with people as much as I would like."

"Oh…" The boy simply nodded.

"Now that you're finally awake Midoriya, I have some questions that I would like you to answer."

"I don't…h-how do you know my name?"

"Ah yes, I took the liberty of searching through your belongings when I brought you in here. You had your student card on you."

"Oh…"

There was an awkward silence between the two that lingered for a good thirty seconds. Midoriya really had no clue what to think of this situation. Here he was, in some opulently decorated room sitting across from some weird man who was giving off a rather intimidating aura. As the boy tried to figure out exactly what he should do next, the man decided to strike up a new conversation.

"You're free to leave anytime you'd like. However...the rain is still coming down rather forcefully and doesn't look like it's going to let up anytime soon. Would you care to entertain an old man in the meantime? Something tells me that the two of us have a lot to discuss."

"I...w-what do you want to t-talk about?"

Instead of verbal response, the man held up the charred remains of his "Hero Analysis" notebook in his hand. The same one that his bully torched the day that he ran away from home. "I _stumbled_ upon this while you were asleep. And might I say...it's a very impressive piece of work. I'm a quirk researcher myself, and your observations are top class."

"Thank you..."

"Your insight into potential uses and applications for quirks is rather remarkable. I'd even go so far to say that you'd put most university students to shame."

"You...think so?"

"Why of course!" The man smiled. "I've been studying quirks for a long time you see. When I read through your work, I was pleasantly surprised at the level of detail in your writings. It's obvious to me that you possess quite the brilliant mind."

"Thank you." The boy simply said. It was clear to All for One that the praise he was giving the boy was making him more comfortable. Which is exactly what he needed. And now that he had him right where he wanted, it was time to turn things up a bit.

"I'd love to pick your brain about a few observations that you've made. It's not often that I get the chance to engage in conversation with someone who shares my passions. Especially one as young as yourself."

"That's fine, I guess."

"Excellent…" All for One smiled.

Over the next hour or so the two engaged in rather titillating conversation centered around quirk research and theory. Although he was reluctant at first, Midoriya found himself becoming more and more comfortable as time went on. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but there was something about this man that sparked his interest. Enough so that his earlier concerns seemed to vanish as time went on.

For All for One, something like this was childsplay. Over his many years he developed a skill for making himself more endearing to the object of his interests. And it was clear to him that this boy was so starved for attention that he didn't even realize it. However that was only one part of the equation.

Simply put, the boy was brilliant. A hidden gem that had fallen right into his lap. His knowledge on quirks was impressive by itself. But he could see the seeds of a budding intellect yet to reach its full potential. All for One truly was a lucky man, even in his current state the universe had blessed him with another tool to achieve his goals. One that would be most useful if guided properly.

'_This boy should prove to be quite the valuable ally to Tomura in the future.'_

Eventually the conversation died down and All for One was ready to enact the next step of his plan. One where he would make the boy an offer that he'd be foolish to refuse. Given what he saw inside of Midoriya's memories he knew that the boy was desperate. Desperate for a chance to change the course of his life. To find a purpose in a world that shunned him so ruthlessly.

"Tell me Midoriya, what are your plans for the future? A bright young man such as yourself must have some lofty aspirations that would put your talents to good use."

"I…" Midoriya paused for a moment. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, but there was something deep inside that prevented him from letting the words come out. "I...d-don't know."

"Really? With the passion in which you talk about heroes and quirks, I assumed that you wanted to become one yourself."

"I...c-can't become a hero." His demoner immediately fell into one of sadness.

"Why not?"

"B-because….because I-I don't have a quirk. People like me can't become heroes. It...it's impossible."

"And what _fool_ told you something like that?" All for One asked, already knowing the answer.

"Someone that I used to look up to." Those words were accompanied by a slight tense of his muscles and a clench of his fists. Something that All for One was quite pleased to see.

"I see. Well, whoever this person was, they were a fool to tell you something so ridiculous. Even now, I can tell that you'd become a marvelous hero."

All Midoriya did was stay silent. As happy as it made him to finally hear those words he had to take them with a grain of salt. To him, no matter what he couldn't achieve his dream.

"If you don't mind me asking, why do you want to become a hero? Is it fame, or even fortune?"

"No, nothing like that." He shook his head. "I just...I just want to help people. I know it sounds silly, but I just want to be able to do what I can to make sure that people are safe and don't have to be afraid."

'_Hmmm...he reminds me of my brother.'_ All for One mused. He could practically feel the sincerity in the boy's words. Although he himself could never truly understand the sentiment. The sheer thought of living one's life in the service of others was childish to him. But nonetheless, it was something that he could use to his advantage.

"My boy, what if I told you that there was a way for you to achieve your dreams? A way for you to gain a quirk, one that would allow you to save countless lives."

"That's impossible." Midoriya immediately countered.

"_Impossible_ is a word used by those with small minds and weak wills. After all, we live in a world where the impossible happens on a daily basis."

"What do you mean?"

All for One gave the boy a smile that sent a chill down his spine before responding. "Young Midoriya, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Would you like to know what _my_ quirk is?"

"What is it?"

"I have quite the miraculous ability. My quirk allows me to bestow quirks onto others. I won't go into details because the explanation is rather...complicated. However, if you so desire I can endow you with a quirk that would give you more than a fighting chance." He explained, leaving out the parts that the boy didn't need to know.

"What?!"

"It's the truth, my boy. I've done so many times before, it would be as easy as drawing a breath."

To say that Midoriya's mind was now reeling would be an understatement. Did a quirk like that really exist? One that could give power to others? That couldn't be true. Quirks themselves were genetic, the only way they could be passed down was through blood. There was no way that something like that could exist. If it did….

"You're lying!"

"I assure you, I am not. I've had many friends over the years who I've blessed with this power. And something tells me that you would benefit greatly from my generosity."

Against his better judgement, Midoriya decided to humor the man and his ramblings. A part of him knew that he was lying. But another was also curious. Curious enough to see if what he was telling him actually had some merit.

"If...if t-that was true, w-what kind of quirk would you give me?"

All for One stayed silent as he contemplated his response. He took a good look at the green haired teen and considered the possibilities. In his collection were a myriad of quirks that he had accumulated over the years. Ones powerful and useful depending on the situation. However, there was one that seemed to be the best fit.

'_Tornado's would be quite interesting to see.'_ He thought.

It had been almost two years since he acquired that woman's quirk. And as much as it annoyed him to admit it, he himself didn't have much use for it. Due to the damage that his body sustained during his fight with All Might, operating that particular power was troublesome. The strain on the parts of his brain that it activated used up too much stamina and caused migraines after only a few seconds. He briefly considered transferring it into one of his Nomu's, but those creatures lacked the higher level brain function to actually use it. At least the ones that were currently available.

But now that he thought about it, Midoirya might be a good candidate for it. Quirkless people were like stem cells, their bodies were equivalent to blank slates that could easily be molded into something spectacular. His mother possessed a low-level telekinetic quirk. And if his hunch was correct, Midoriya should be able to adapt to it relatively easily. If not, then he could easily reclaim it. Or he might even be able to offer up the boy as a subject for the doctor's new "High-End Nomu Project".

With his mind made up, All for One stood up from his seat and began approaching the boy.

"Now listen well, my boy. What I plan to give you is quite the blessing, many people out there would give anything for a power of this magnitude. As such, it comes with a price."

"A price?" Midoriya unknowingly retreated further into the sofa.

"Don't worry, it's nothing major. All I ask is that you return the favor to me someday. Think of it as a transaction in which you will one day repay my kindness."

"You're...y-you're serious?"

"Why yes, what would I gain from lying to you?"

"I...I don't know what to s-say."

"Well, do you accept? This is the opportunity of the lifetime I am offering you."

Paranoia and doubt were the only things that Midoriya was feeling at this moment. Could he be serious? Was this man really offering him a quirk? The one thing that he had been wishing for his entire life. No, there was no way. It just didn't seem possible. Something like this was way too good to be true.

"The favor!" He blurted out for reasons unknown to him. "What's the favor?!"

"I simply ask that when I call upon you, you help me out in any future endeavors that would require your assistance. Someone like you would prove to be a valuable ally for my goals."

Maybe it was the stress of the situation. Or possibly even the fact that he was more desperate than what he realized. But all Midoriya could do was nod his head. If what this masked man was saying were true, then how could he not accept the offer? It was as if an angel had descended from the heavens to grant him a lifelong wish.

"Excellent." All for One smiled. "And I know exactly what power would suit you the best."

"What-" Midoriya was cut off when the man placed his hand on the top of his head.

"I'll admit that even I have a difficult time controlling this one. But it should serve you quite well."

"What is-"

"Don't worry my boy, you will feel no pain. Go on and achieve your dream. And you'd do well to know that if you ever chose to return to me, I am here...for you."

At that exact same moment, Midoriya felt a surge of electricity rush through him. It was if every cell in his body had been lit on fire and ignited with an energy that he couldn't really describe. Just as quickly as it came the feeling passed, leaving him dazed and slightly dizzy.

All the boy could do was look back up the man in confusion. He definitely felt different, in a way that he couldn't put into words. But for some reason, his mind felt lighter.

"Now…" All for One spoke. "It will take some time for you to get used to that new power of yours. So be sure to train hard and work diligently. I have faith that you will become an excellent hero...and an even more extraordinary ally."

"Ally? What do you…." Once again, the world faded to darkness before the boy finished his sentence. And just like before, he was out cold in a matter of seconds.

With his plan now in motion, All for One walked back over to his desk and pressed a button on the underside of the table. And in an instant, a well-dressed Kurogiri appeared before him.

"Master?" The humanoid mist looked to the man before noticing the unconscious teenager on the sofa to his right.

"Take young Midoriya and drop him off somewhere dry. I've adjusted his memory to where he won't remember our little talk for now."

"What do you intend to do with him, sir?"

"The boy needs time to develop his quirk. As he is now he wouldn't be of much use. It will be some time before I'll need to reclaim him, so for now I'll allow him to roam free." He answered in a matter of fact tone.

"Yes sir, I have some business on the other side of the prefecture. I'll drop him off along the way."

"Thank you, Kurogiri."

The mist man simply bowed and used his quirk to create a portal around the boy. He himself knew not to ask too many questions when it came to his master's schemes. Whatever he was planning on doing to this boy, it must've been important if he was so gracious enough to keep him alive.

With his servant now gone, All for One took a moment to admire his handiwork. He truly enjoyed when things worked out in his favor. Especially when it happened in such an unexpected way.

'_I have to thank you, All Might. You've provided me with quite the tool.'_

What Midoriya didn't know however was that All for One took the liberty of making a few changes to his memory prior to Kurogiri taking him away. Nothing truly significant, but enough to further cement his plans in quite the interesting way.

-(o)-

"_If you want to help people there are plenty of other ways to do it. Become a police officer. They get crap because the heroes capture most of the villains. But it's a fine profession." The now deflated form of All Might said to Midoriya as he made his way to the door. _

_"__It's not bad to have a dream, young man. Just...make sure your dreams are attainable...and realistic, understand?"_

_The next words that came out of the hero's mouth were truly the nail in the coffin for Midoriya's sanity. _

"_I know that you probably don't want to hear this...but there's just not a lot of things that quirkless people can do in today's society. Becoming a hero is just one example of that. I'm sorry, but that's just the way that the cookie crumbles, kid. Opportunities for people like you are limited and they're not that great. You're obsolete. In this world, power is everything. And those without power don't really have a lot of options. It'd be best for you to just accept that and stay out of people's way."_

_And with that, All Might closed the door behind him. Leaving behind a boy with a hollow mind and a now broken spirit._

* * *

The sudden rush of information was a little too much for the boy's mind to handle. It was as if the missing piece of the puzzle had finally been put into its proper spot. Patching up the incomplete fragment of his mind that plagued him for the last year. As the appendage uncoiled itself from his head, Midoriya quickly looked up at the man he now fully recognized.

"Y-you…"

"Like I said before, I apologize for having to do that to you."

A flurry of emotions washed over the boy's body and the only thing he could do was drop his knees.

"M-my quirk….you g-gave me my quirk…."

"Yes, and as I said before it was a power that would help you realize your goals."

"I...don't...I don't k-know…"

"Pick yourself up off the floor, my boy. A man of your brilliance doesn't look good on his knees." All for One said to him in a tone that would consider "soft".

Words failed Midoriya at that moment. He had no clue where to even begin. Standing before him was the man that gave him another chance at life. Someone who granted him a blessing that one could only dream of. Except this man, he was working for the '_League of Villains'_. No...it was the exact opposite. The group of criminals was working for _him_.

"It would be a shame if you got mixed up with Tomura's plans for the time being. So instead of having to deal with him, I've decided to let you spend some time with me."

"W-why?" He questioned.

"It's as I said before. The two of us have some catching up to do. And I'm particularly interested to hear about your progress…."

* * *

_~Tokage House~_

It had barely been a full day since the attack on the camp and Tokage was arguably in worse condition than she was before. After being released from the hospital and giving her testimony to the police, the girl and her family returned to their home so that she could relax. Except relaxing was the absolute last thing on her mind.

There had been no updates on the situation concerning Midoriya and things didn't bode well. In her mind, the boy was being subjected to unspeakable tortures at the hands of those villains and there was nothing that she could do about it. All she could do was sit and wait. Hoping that any minute now she'd get some kind of alert that the green haired boy had been saved.

Tokage looked at her still regenerating left arm and the images of last night flashed before her mind. Those villains were more than willing to kill if given the chance. Her own injuries were enough proof of that. The man with the fire quirk was enough trouble as it was. But that psychotic blonde who stabbed her particularly rubbed her the wrong way. And the possibility that Midoriya couldn't use his quirk made the situation even more precarious.

'_Ugh...this is fucking killing me!'_ The girl internally groaned as she threw herself back onto her bed.

All of a sudden the door to her room opened, revealing her aunt. The woman paused for a second as she took in the sight of his youngest niece. Without a word, Kayama walked over and sat herself down on the edge of the girl's bed.

"How are you holding up?" The "R-Rated" heroine asked in a soft tone.

"I'm doing great!" Tokage said sarcastically. "I'm stressed out, missing a third of my arm, oh...and my boyfriend got kidnapped by some villains who are probably torturing him as we speak!"

Kayama fell silent as she tried to find the right words to say. It pained her to see her niece in such a state. She herself was used to situations such as this, being the experienced hero that she was. But this was Tokage's first time ever dealing with these kinds of hardships.

"Listen to me Setsuna, everything is going to be just fine." She scooted a bit closer and patted the girl on the head. "Midoriya and Bakugou will be fine, I'm sure of it."

"And how can you know something like that?! Those people are crazy! We don't even know what they wanted them for in the first place."

"I know how you feel, honestly. But in times like this it's best to keep a level head and trust that the heroes are doing everything that they can to bring them home safely. Think about it, would those villains really go through all that trouble just to hurt them?"

"Probably not…." The green haired girl conceded. "But that doesn't make me feel any better."

Once again, the heroine took a moment to consider her next words. She was accustomed to doing everything that she could to pacify someone in times of crisis. But it was a whole different story when a person you care about is the one who's been hurt. Against her better judgement, Kayama decided to relay some information that would put the girl's mind at ease.

"I doubt it would. But listen...I'm not supposed to tell you this, but the heroes are planning an operation to get them back tonight. If everything goes well, we'll have Midoriya back in a few hours."

"What?!" The girl shot up and stared directly into her aunt's blue eyes. Was she serious? They were going to get Midoriya back tonight? This was the best thing that she's heard all day.

"Since I'm not part of the operation, I don't have all the details. But All Might is going with them. And they'll have more than a few heavy hitters to make sure that they bring him back safely."

A sense of relief washed over Tokage's body after hearing this information. She trusted her aunt's words more than anything. So if she was certain that they'd be getting her boyfriend back in one piece that was more than good enough for her. For now at least….

"But it won't do you any good to just sit in here and mope around until then. Come now, Urie is almost done with dinner and you need to eat so that your arm can finish regenerating. We're having an extra big helping of yakitori."

"Fine…" The girl sighed as she willed herself out of her bed to join the rest of her family in the dining room. But even with the knowledge that she had now, she couldn't help but worry about how her green-bean was doing.

'_God...I hope he'll be okay.'_

* * *

_~A few hours later.~_

With the confirmation from Ragdoll concerning the whereabouts of the two students, the operation to retrieve Midoriya and Bakugou was already underway. Time was of the essence with this and everyone knew the stakes. Even with the limited information that they had to work with the heroes and police had put together a surefire plan that was both quick and efficient.

Team Alpha, consisting of All Might, Blizzard, Edgeshot, Kamui Woods, Gran Torino, Tsukauchi and a few other officers were going to assault what they believed to be the '_League of Villains'_ main base of operations. Which was an unassuming building where Bakugou was currently being held. During their brief scouting mission, Ragdoll and Tiger were able to spot a man who fit the description of the one known as Dabi, along with another who they knew as Twice.

While on the other end of the equation Team Bravo, whose ranks included Endeavor, Best Jeanist, Tiger, Gang Orca, Mt. Lady and their own unit of officers were going to make a move on another building in the factory district of the ward. This was where Midoriya was being held. And thanks to earlier reports they were able to identify a few of the Nomu creatures in some sort of stasis tanks. The original plan was to have All Might and Endeavor on the same team, but due to the number two hero's protest he was switched out with Blizzard.

As the group of heroes were mere seconds away from making their move Best Jeanist waited for the signal to begin. And luckily, he didn't have to wait long before giving the green light to Mt. Lady to destroy the outer wall.

* * *

Inside the building, All for One was more than ready for their hasty attack to begin. The security cameras he placed all around the block had alerted him to what was going on outside. And he was admittedly impressed with how quickly his foes had sniffed him out. He would've preferred to have a bit more time with his pawn, but the rest of their conversation would have to wait for later.

"It seems that we have some visitors." The man spoke as he put the finishing touches on securing his respiratory mask to his head.

"What's going on?" A now recovered Midoriya looked at the man in confusion. Even with his injuries now healed thanks to one of the man's quirks, the boy was still wary of trying to break out of his prison. Especially since he had no clue as to where he was.

"We'll continue that little discussion of ours later, my boy. But for now...I require your assistance."

"What do you mea-"

Without any warning, All for One placed his hand on the boy's head and Midoriya's mind suddenly became clouded. It was almost as if someone plunged his brain into a bucket of ice cold water.

"**Obedience!"**

* * *

In the blink of an eye, the outer wall of the building came crashing down thanks to Mt. Lady. The pro heroes on the scene were quick to round up the Nomu in the area and immediately began searching for their objective.

"Keep those things under control and get the transport ready!" Endeavor ordered. "That boy has to be here somewhere!"

"These things are disgusting." Mt. Lady scrunched her face at the sight of the ugly creatures she was holding within her grasp.

Suddenly, the air around them grew stale and the sound of footsteps steadily approaching them caused everyone to tighten up and get into their fighting stances.

"My, my, you heroes sure have created quite the mess here. It's going to take quite a bit of time for me to clean this up." An ominous voice spoke to them.

"Are you with the League?" Gang Orca questioned the shadowy figure.

All for One didn't respond. Instead, he kept on walking towards them. And with each step the air grew colder.

"Stop there, don't move!"

Deciding not to wait for an invitation, Best Jeanist quickly sprang into action and activated his quirk. In a fraction of a second, the tall figure was trapped within a binding made from his own clothing.

"Who are you?!" Endeavor shouted.

"How troublesome." All for One said in a calm tone that almost sounded amused. "As easy as it would be for me to break these constraints myself, I think that I should let my young friend here stretch his legs a bit. He's got quite a bit of pent up aggression and it would be good for him to blow off some steam"

"What are you talking about?!"

After the words came out of Tiger's mouth another figure appeared right next to the first. Unfortunately for the heroes, their brief hesitation at the sight of this newcomer would prove to be a costly mistake.

"**Hellstorm!"**

* * *

**Author's Notes: There's quite a lot that I want to say about this chapter. But for now I'll just let you guys come to your own conclusions.**

**1\. Yes, AFO did alter Midoriya's memories about his meeting with All Might. That's going to come up later when this whole debacle is finished. The two won't have a lot of interactions after that. And a lot of you might not be pleased with the outcome of their conversation. Fair warning….**

**2\. I won't give too much away about what's going to happen next. But here's a little hint: Midoriya vs Fubuki part 2 (Full Powered Versions). **

**Like always, thank you for reading and don't be afraid to drop a comment/review. I'm always interested in seeing what you guys think about this story.**


	31. Tornado Alley!

"Bakugou...No!" All Might shouted nearly at the top of his lungs as the boy vanished.

"Blizzard!" Kamui Woods looked back towards the green haired heroine.

Outside in the street, the '_psychokinesis'_ user was doing everything she could to keep the situation contained. Things had been going smoothly until the plan suddenly went belly-up. Their team managed to subdue the villains and secure the hostage in a matter of seconds. But just when they were about to get the transport team ready, multiple pools of black liquid suddenly appeared out of thin air. Before Blizzard could even blink, the entire area had been overrun by what she assumed were those Nomu creatures that she was briefed about prior to the mission.

_'Endeavor and Jeanist were supposed to make sure that these things were taken care of.'_ Blizzard thought to herself as she took control of the Nomu surrounding her and the police. "Detective!"

"Something's wrong, Endeavor's team isn't responding!" Tsukauchi shouted back at her.

"The villains have escaped!" Kamui Woods' voice howled through all the confusion. This was not good, these guys were only supposed to have one person with a teleportation quirk. Obviously their intel was wrong, but there wasn't enough time to worry about that now.

Before she had a chance to reply, a whirlwind suddenly appeared from inside the building. Flinging these abhorrent creatures in every direction.

"Blizzard!" The woman then looked up to see All Might standing at the massive hole in the wall he created at the start of the operation. "Are you keeping up?!"

"We have the situation handled! If you're going to after them then do it. We'll catch up shortly!"

"Fine…I'll leave it to you." Was all the number one hero said before dashing off in the direction of the other hideout. She didn't know why, but Blizzard had a really bad feeling about all of this.

* * *

Katsuki Bakugou was absolutely fed up. Not only had he been captured by these lame ass villains, he had to endure listening to their incessant ramblings for the last few hours.

For some reason their leader was under the impression that he could convince him to join the side of villainy. As if something so stupid was even possible. How dare these fools even think that Katsuki Bakugou would stoop so low as to become a villain? That was not his goal, not by a long shot.

He was going to become a hero. One who never knew defeat and achieved the glory of becoming number one. He had no time to play these foolish games. And that's exactly what he made clear when he blasted that stupid hand-villain in the face with his quirk.

Just as Bakugou was about to try and break his way out of this hellhole, things got pretty crazy. In the blink of an eye, All Might and some other heroes broke into the building and made quick work of capturing these losers. And as much as he hated to admit it, he was a bit relieved that someone came to rescue him.

But that's when everything went to shit. From out of nowhere, this disgusting black fluid erupted from his own mouth and covered his entire body. Encasing him in a cocoon of darkness that he wasn't able to escape from. The last thing he heard before everything went dark was All Might calling his name.

Just as quickly as it came, the liquid vanished and Bakugou found himself standing in a completely different place then he was a second ago.

"God dammit...what the hell?" He managed to let out in between coughs.

"My apologies, Bakugou." A sinister sounding voice said to him.

Deciding to take in as much information as possible to figure out what was going on, the boy quickly scanned the area. And when he did, his heart almost dropped into his stomach….

All around him was rubble and carnage. The entire area looked like a twister just ran through it. But that was the least of his worries. In his field of vision, Bakugou caught the sight of multiple bodies laying on the ground around him. But these weren't just any bodies, they were all heroes that he recognized. Endeavor, Best Jeanist, Mt. Lady, all people whom he considered strong in some capacity.

'_What the hell is going on here?'_ He asked himself before locking eyes onto a very familiar sight. Right in front of him were two people. One was a large man with some shity looking mask covering his face wearing a cheap suit. And the other...the other person was that stupid loser, Deku.

Before the '_explosion'_ quirk user could speak, multiple other portals suddenly appeared around him and those other loser villains fell through them.

"Master?" The hand-villain said in a surprised tone.

"I do apologize, Tomura." The man replied. "Do not be discouraged at your failure. This was simply an unforeseen complication. One that can easily be corrected."

"What the hell happened here?" The lizard-faced villain asked what everyone else seemed to be thinking.

"It was quite the spectacle, Spinner. Midoriya here blasted away all of the heroes in a rather impressive show of force. I'll admit that even I wasn't expecting him to use so much power." The masked man then motioned over to Midoriya, who was standing next to him. The boy was wearing a blank expression that was both calm and slightly intimidating.

Those words lingered in Bakugou's mind for a good five seconds, as they did everyone else's. Did he hear that right? Deku just attacked and took down all of those heroes? No, that was impossible. Deku may have been an idiot, but there was no way that he would do something like that, unless….

Suddenly, a moment of clarity struck Bakugou like a freight train. Everything started making sense. It had been hours since he last saw the nerd. And now, here he was standing right next to the villain boss like he belonged there. The dots seemed to connect instantly and Bakugou's blood started boiling. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but one thing was clear to him.

"What the hell's going here, Deku?!" He shouted towards the greenette, demanding some type of answer. "Don't tell me went and joined these losers!"

Midoriya stayed silent, almost as if his presence hadn't even registered in the boy's mind. Bakugou was already pissed off. But the last thing he was going to tolerate was being ignored by someone like him.

"I asked you a question you damn ner-" The next thing Bakugou felt was his body lock up and his feet leave the ground. He upturned his eyes to see Midoriya holding his hand out towards him. The boy's face was still unchanged and it was almost like he was peering directly into his soul. What happened next threw everyone off guard. Bakugou's arms lifted up in front of him. He tried his hardest to break free from the boy's quirk, but it was useless.

"Let go of me you damn lose-"

***Snap!***

"Argh!" There was a brief delay before the pain caught up to his brain and the horrid sound of Bakugou's scream echoed throughout the area. The '_explosion'_ quirk user looked on in absolute horror at the sight of his arms. Which were now bent in an awkward direction.

"You're so annoying." Midoriya calmly said to him.

The last thing Bakugou felt was his body flying through the air before impacting the remains of a nearby wall. As the world around him faded to black, the only thing he could see was Deku's smug face staring at him with that blank expression.

"Oh shit!" Magna shouted in surprise at what she just saw.

"That was amazing, Izuku!" Toga outwardly gushed.

All for One would be lying if he said that he didn't find that somewhat amusing. He wasn't expecting the boy to act without orders, but considering Midoriya's internal hatred towards Bakugou he should've seen something like that coming. The downside to the '_obedience'_ quirk was heightened aggression. It was the same power he used on his Nomus before sending them out to wreak havoc. But no matter, things were still going according to plan. Tomura may have lost Bakugou, but Midoriya was a more valuable piece.

"Master."

All for One then turned to face his successor. "You must not be discouraged, you can try again. That's why I've brought you and your associates back with you. And you now have Midoriya here to assist you with your future endeavors." His voice was what one would consider caring. "Start over as many times as you like. I am here to provide you with help. All of this...is for yo- Ah, there you are."

Before the others had a chance to react, All Might came bursting through the smoke and collided directly into All for One. Resulting in a shockwave strong enough to blow everyone back, including the heroes who were still unconscious on the ground.

"I'll have you return my students, All for One!"

"Have you come to kill a second time, All Might?"

Another shockwave quickly followed along with a massive cloud of dust and debris. The damage to the area seemed to double with that collision and everyone knew that things were about to change.

Once his vision cleared, All Might scanned the area to get a feel for the situation. The scene was absolute chaos. All around him were the bodies of his comrades who appear to have already fallen. The seasoned pro took in as much information as he could before his gaze locked onto Bakugou. Who was unconscious with massive bruises on both arms.

"It took you thirty seconds to get here, All Might. Have you gotten weaker?"

"You're one to talk. It's kind of difficult to ignore that life support mask on your face. Aren't you overexerting yourself, old man?"

The number one hero mentally prepared himself for what he knew was coming next. With his greatest enemy before him it would be difficult for the man to secure Bakugou and get him to safety, not to mention all the others. Unfortunately for him, All Might didn't even get the opportunity to consider his next move before a massive piece of concrete came flying at him.

With ease, All Might pulverize the boulder with a single punch. The man then looked in the direction where the attack came from and his mind froze. There, floating in the air a few meters above the ground was Midoriya. The boy looked to be unharmed, however he was using his quirk to carry the villains who managed to slip away from his grasp.

"Good work, Midoriya. Thank you for protecting Tomura and his friends." All for One thanked the boy.

"Young Midoriya!" The number one hero shouted. "What is the meaning of this?!"

All he received was silence before another boulder came flying at him. Once again, he punched the piece of concrete into oblivion but now his attention was fully focused on his student. Were his assumptions correct after all? Was Midoriya really working for the '_League of Villains'_? He didn't really know what to think.

All for One could practically read the man's facial expressions like a book. Looking to use this to his advantage, he decided to add a little bit of doubt into his enemy's head.

"Don't get the wrong idea, All Might. Midoriya here is not acting on his own free will. I used a quirk of mine to make the boy obey me."

"What?!" The blonde haired man countered. Now he was confused. The scene around him was already chaotic enough, but now his student was being controlled? Was he wrong? "What have you done?!"

"The effect isn't permanent, I assure you. He'll be back to his old self in about a day or so. But in the meantime, I think it would be most entertaining to see you do battle with one of your _precious students_." The masked man then turned his gaze towards the greenette. "Midoriya, would you care to lend me a hand? Tomura and the others will be fine. Please make sure that you keep All Might entertained. I don't recall him ever facing off against anyone with a powerful telekinetic quirk."

Midoriya didn't verbally respond. And like a well trained dog, the boy set the villains down on the ground before making his move. Midoriya then launched himself through the air like a rocket on a direct course towards his opponent. All Might shoved his feelings down for the moment and cocked his arm back, ready to deliver a powerful "Smash". Strong enough to knock the boy out, but not injure him.

The only problem though was that he was immediately flanked on his right side by a powerful blast of air. One strong enough to send him careening into a nearby building and destroy more of the area.

"I didn't say that _I_ wasn't going to join in on the fun, now did I?" All for One mocked him before once again turning his attention towards his young aid. "Bring him to me."

Midoriya used his powers to lift All Might's body off the ground and levitate him over to his handler. The pro hero struggled as he tried to break free of the telekinesis, but it was not working.

"You're getting sloppy in your old age, Toshinori. I'm almost disappointed that I was able to capture you so easily."

"You fiend!" The blonde haired man continued to struggle. "Young Midoriya, you mustn't let this man control you like this!"

"I'm afraid that you're the _last_ person he'll listen to. He absolutely hates you after all. No matter, I suppose I'll have to enjoy this victory of mine at a later time." All for One then pointed his hand directly at All Might's face. "I wonder if you'll be able to survive a blast from this close."

"Dammit!"

Just when All for One was about to deliver what was sure to be a devastating blast, something unexpected happened. Without any warning, Midoriya was sent flying backwards into a nearby wall and the control on his quirk was broken. Not waiting for an invitation, All Might used this to his advantage to punch All for One square in the chest. Sending the masked man soaring into some rubble.

"Midoriya, you better have a damn good explanation for what I'm looking at right now!" Everyone in the area looked up to see none other than Blizzard floating in the sky above them. The woman appeared to be out of breath and had a serious look on her face.

"Blizzard!"

"All Might, what the hell is going on?!"

"Young Midoriya...he's being manipulated! They've used some kind of mind control quirk on him!"

"What?" The green haired heroine immediately looked to the boy who just got back onto his feet.

A few thoughts were running through her mind upon hearing that declaration, and none of them were pleasant. She hoped that her eyes were playing tricks on her when she saw what appeared to be Midoriya aiding one of the villains, but apparently that wasn't the case. As much as she wanted a detailed explanation on what exactly transpired before her arrival, it didn't look like she was going to get the chance.

"Ah Blizzard, how nice of you to join us." All for One then spoke as he pulled himself out of the rubble and began floating in the air.

'_He can fly too, huh? This is going to be a problem.'_ The woman thought. "What have you done to Midoriya-kun?!"

"I'm simply _borrowing_ the boy for a bit, nothing to worry yourself over." The mask man replied in a smug tone. "However, now that you're here things have gotten a bit more _interesting_."

"Release Midoriya-kun at once, you bastard!"

"But why would I do that when I can have him to keep you busy? I've always wanted to witness a battle between two strong telekinesis users and this is the perfect opportunity for that. I think Midoriya here would prove to be quite the challenge for you...he does have your sister's quirk after all."

The air grew stiff as Blizzard processed the man's last statement. What did he just say? Midoriya had her sister's quirk? What did that even mean? Sure, they had similar powers but that was it. Nothing about that comment made sense to her.

"Oh...you haven't figured it out yet, have you? You see, Midoriya is currently in possession of your dearly departed sister's quirk. I gave it to him shortly after our first encounter. I myself didn't have much use for it, but the boy seems to be managing quite well."

"Wait…" All Might interjected. "Did you…you monster!"

"Midoriya, change of plans! Keep Blizzard entertained while I deal with All Might. The two of you have much to discuss. Once you're done, return to me." All for One ordered the boy.

The green haired teen didn't reply, instead he launched himself towards Blizzard at full speed. The woman reacted fast enough to avoid getting hit but Midoriya circled around faster than she expected. She quickly chose to ascend further into the air to avoid a collision, but the boy changed direction just as fast and followed her. It only took a few seconds before the two telekinetic greenettes got into what could only be considered an aerial dogfight. Both of them gaining more and more altitude with each passing second.

"Blizzard!" All Might shouted.

"Your fight is with me, All Might. Let the children have their fun."

"You bastard, what have you done?! What do you intend to do with young Midoriya?!"

"That boy should be the least of your worries right now. After all, the two of us have a score to settle."

* * *

In a matter of moments, the two telekinesis users were a significant distance away from the other two fighters and gaining more altitude with each passing second. Blizzard still had no idea what was going on, but the fact that Midoriya was being controlled made this situation a lot more tricky. She was glad that her student hadn't turned to the side of villainy of his own accord. But now there was a rampaging teenager that she had to deal with.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Midoriya charged her again, and like before she was able to dodge it easily. Now that she had some distance, the woman used her power to push the boy further away and give her some room to think. Her main focus right now was to find a way to subdue Midoriya without injuring him. But that might have been too tall of an order given the situation. Under normal circumstances that would have been a piece of cake. But when facing someone with a similar skill set as you, it was considerably more difficult.

"Midoriya-kun, snap out of it!" She shouted. However, the only response that she got was the boy charging at her yet again. '_Dammit, it looks like talking to him is out of the question.' _

Blizzard took a brief second to look down and scan the area. She needed to find somewhere with a lot of loose material that would help her put the boy down. But all around them were apartment buildings and residential neighborhoods. It would've been easier to just use the remains of the already destroyed buildings. But this was the type of fight where any reckless actions on her part would only add to the chaos.

Luckily, she was able to spot what looked like some sort of factory about a kilometer away from where she had left All Might. One that was outside of the residential area. Seeing as this was probably her best option, the green haired heroine turned around and made a beeline straight for it. And as expected, Midoriya was right on her tail.

As the two grew closer to the factory, Blizzard could see that the place was shut down. The lights were off and there didn't appear to be anyone in sight. Which meant that there definitely wouldn't be any unnecessary casualties.

The woman then spotted some steel girders near the entrance gate. Something like that was easy for her to manipulate and would be perfect for subduing her opponent. However, just when she was about to grab hold of the object she felt her body get pulled backwards immediately forced to the ground.

Blizzard looked up and saw that Midoriya had already caught up with her. The boy was levitating some loose debris around his body and wasted no time in launching it all directly at her. In response, Blizzard used her powers to stop the debris in its tracks before sending it right back at him. Midoriya dodged to avoid getting hit which caused him to lose his focus.

With that small window of opportunity, Blizzard decided to just bite the bullet and ripped some nearby streetlights out of the ground. She was hoping to avoid any unnecessary property damage, but it looked like she wasn't going to be that lucky today. In response to this, Midoriya followed suit by also ripping some streetlights out of the ground and flung them towards the woman. What followed was a rather impressive display from the two telekinesis users. Both of them sending a variety of objects towards one another while also somehow managing to avoid getting hit themselves.

'_Dammit, this is getting me nowhere!'_ Blizzard clicked her teeth in annoyance. Suddenly, Midoriya changed battle strategy and charged at her once again. This time however, he was able to connect and the two went flying through the factory doors and into the main building.

"**Push!"** The woman shouted before using a short burst of her power to create some space.

Something was wrong here. There might be more to this mind control quirk than what she thought. Midoriya usually wasn't this aggressive during a fight. In fact, the boy preffered to keep his distance whenever possible. And right now he seemed to be more combative than his usual self.

"Ahh!" The boy shouted while waving his hands into the air and bringing them back down. Quite literally causing the roof to collapse down on top of them. Thankfully, Blizzard had the wherewithal to stop the loose pieces of wood and metal from hitting her. Otherwise, she might have gotten impaled.

Things quickly took a more serious turn when Midoriya began floating higher and higher into the air. The boy looked around for a second before holding his arms out at either side and levitating a ridiculous amount of material off the ground. "**Hellstorm!"**

In the blink of an eye, Blizzard was surrounded by a massive vortex of debris. This wasn't good. She already knew that Midoriya was powerful, but the scale of this move wasn't what she was expecting. The space around her began closing in. But the woman certainly wasn't about to let herself get bested by something like this. "**Hellstorm!"**

The whirlwind began rapidly changing shape, fluctuating more and more each second. In the air, Midoriya appeared to be struggling to maintain his grip on the super move. While down below, Blizzard seemed to be doing everything that she could to negate it. The stalemate came to an end when the vortex dispersed, sending wood and scrap metal in every direction.

"Did you forget that _I'm_ the one who taught you that move, boy?! You have a long way to go before you can overpower me with that!"

Blizzard's brief taunt seemed to strike a nerve with the boy. His face immediately shifted from one that was devoid emotion to one that showed what was undoubtedly displeasure. Without any warning, everything around her began levitating and Blizzard felt a chill go down her spine.

'_Looks like hurting him is unavoidable. I'm sorry, Midoriya-kun.'_

Not looking to wait around and get impaled, the woman launched herself into the sky and charged directly at Midoriya. The boy failed to react fast enough to avoid getting punched in the face and flew back a good four meters before recovering. Blizzard knew that she couldn't give him a chance to get himself together, so she proceeded to let loose a slurry of well placed punches and kicks. Midoriya tried his best to dodge and maneuver, but her hand-to-hand skills were just too good.

The tables quickly turned when Blizzard delivered a well-timed kick to the abdomen which caused Midoriya to clutch his midsection. With that brief window of opportunity, she then used her quirk to force him to the ground and sent him right into the pile of rubble that he previously created.

Once the dust cleared, Midoriya was quickly back on his feet and sent another wave of debris at her. But the green haired woman stopped the attack before tossing it to the side. This seemed to anger Midoriya even more and the boy responded by throwing a couple of steel beams at her. Only to get a similar result.

"Give up, Midoriya-kun. You can't beat me. You're only delaying the inevitable!"

Blizzard knew that her words were pointless, but that didn't stop her from trying. Midoriya responded to the declaration by using his quirk to grab hold of her and fling her into another adjacent building. Despite the jarring impact, the woman easily recovered and turned tables. About two hundred meters behind Midoriya on the other side of the building was a small tower comprised of metal beams. With ease, the green haired heroine grabbed hold of him and forced him into it. She then used her quirk to wrap the pieces of metal around him and locked all of his limbs in place. Making sure that he wouldn't be able to move.

Now that the boy was trapped, Blizzard flew over to him. Midoriya struggled to undo his make-shift cage, but the woman maintained a strong grip on the beams.

"Midoriya-kun, give up! The sooner you stop trying to fight, the sooner we can get you back to normal!"

"Argh!" The boy groaned as he struggled to break free. It was pointless though. With Blizzard maintaining her hold on the beams, there was no way that Midoriya was going to overpower her.

'_I guess I have no choice.'_ She sighed internally before raising her hand towards his neck. In all honesty, she hated using this move. It was both abhorrent and reckless. But with Midoriya in his current state, trying to get him to calm down was unlikely. Using a "Force Choke" to knock him out was the best option.

Just when the '_psychokinesis'_ user was about to activate her power she was suddenly pushed away by an invisible force. The strength of which was enough to send her back a good twenty meters. It barely took Blizzard a second to reorient herself. And when she set her gaze back onto Midoriya, her heart almost dropped into her stomach.

Floating hair, glowing green eyes. Those two signs accompanied by a look of absolute ferocity. Yup, there was no doubt about it. Midoriya just activated "Overdrive".

"**...he does have your sister's quirk after all."** The villain's voice replayed in her head. She had no clue what he meant by that. But now wasn't the time. She'll have to get those answers later.

All Blizzard could worry about now was stopping Midoriya before things got out of hand. "Overdrive" may have given him a substantial boost in power, but the price was too great. The longer he stayed in that form, the more severe the consequences.

The woman was brought out her thoughts when the metal surrounding the boy uncoiled itself from his body and began levitating around him. Before she could even blink, they were sent flying towards her with incredible speed. Enough so that evasion was the only thing that she could do. The beams didn't even fully pass before Midoriya appeared right in front of her face. And the next thing the green haired heroine felt was an absolutely devastating blow to her abdomen. One strong enough to completely knock the wind out of her.

The next thing that Blizzard felt was her entire body being thrown to the ground. She tried her hardest to stand back up, but the immense force that Midoriya was exerting on her was too great. By sheer luck, she just so happened to be facing the sky, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to deflect the small boulder that was about to come crashing down on her head. The woman then used her quirk to take control of the boy's body and push him back into the tower. Which gave her enough time to pull herself together and take to the sky.

Once she was a good thirty meters in the air, Midoriya bursted out of the newly created rubble and charged straight at her. She was about to use her quirk to catch him once more, but his speed was too great and he disappeared from her vision. Her eyes darted across the area before receiving yet another blow to the back. Courtesy of Midoriya's left shoulder.

'_Shit, he's too fast now. I can barely keep up with him.'_ She mentally cursed.

***Kaboom!***

All of sudden, a loud explosion could be heard in the distance and Blizzard noticed a massive tornado appear in the area where All Might was supposed to be. With everything going on she had forgotten that the number one hero was still fighting that masked villain. And things appeared to be getting crazy over there.

Unfortunately for her, this lapse in awareness was all that Midoriya needed to close the distance between the two of them and deliver a powerful left hook that connected with her jaw. Using all the power that she could, Blizzard used another "Force Push" to create some distance between the two of them. Roughly forty meters or so.

With the situation now what it was, the green haired woman was left with no other choice. Midoriya needed to be put down. And there was no way for her to do that without going all out. So through gritted teeth, Blizzard resolved herself and flooded all the energy that she could into her quirk.

"**Overdrive!"** Like with Midoriya a few moments ago, the sudden rush of power was accompanied by a wave of telekinetic energy erupting from her body. The boy's face slightly shifted as he looked towards his opponent. Who now had her own set of glowing green eyes.

"This is your last chance, Midoriya-kun. Surrender now, and I won't have to hurt you!"

As she expected, the woman didn't get a response. All she got was some more rubble thrown in her direction. But now she didn't have to worry about dodging them. Instead, Blizzard caught the objects and sent them right back at the boy. Midoriya was somehow able to evade this counterattack before charging at her again. And not looking to be on the receiving end of another one of the boy's punches the woman flew straight up into the sky.

In a matter of seconds the two greenettes were high above the city streets. In fact, they were so high up that you could see nearly the entire prefecture in one glance. The two repeatedly collided with one another while exchanging blows in the process. But neither one was able to gain any significant advantage over the other. Blizzard knew that a slugfest wasn't the kind of fight that she wanted right now. So the woman chose to nosedive directly towards the ground. And as expected, Midoriya followed suit.

In the distance, the woman spotted a supply truck near the other end of the factory fence. Under normal circumstances her range was limited to six hundred meters, but in her "Overdrive" mode that was nearly doubled. So with ease, she lifted the vehicle off of the ground and threw it right at her opponent.

Midoriya was so focused on her that he didn't see the thing coming until the last second. Instead of dodging, the boy deflected the vehicle and sent it flying off into the distance.

Once the two were back above the factory, Blizzard turned towards the boy and summoned all of the strength that she had available. "**Hellstorm: Tornado Alley!"**

Six powerful whirlwinds suddenly appeared out of thin air and Midoriya quickly found himself trapped. Wood, metal, anything that wasn't bolted to the ground was kicked up into the air and there was nowhere for the green haired boy to go. He tried his best to maneuver himself out of the chaos, but everywhere he looked there was just more debris. This move was the absolute pinnacle of Blizzard's abilities and was only possible with the power boost from "Overdrive". Even now, it took every last bit of concentration that she had to maintain it.

With the opportunity to put the metaphorical nail in the coffin, the green haired heroine brought her hands together and all six tornados collapsed in on each other. Resulting in a chaotic blast that was strong enough to shake the ground itself.

'_That had to do the trick...'_ The woman huffed out. It had been a couple of years since the last time she used "Overdrive" and she was already starting to feel its effects. The moment she released her quirk she would more than likely pass out. So before that she needed to confirm whether or not her plan was a success. How her sister was able to maintain this form for as long as she did was truly a mystery to her.

However, her respite from the battle was short-lived when Midoriya bursted through the smoke and came flying at her at top speed. The boy's face was covered in blood and his arm was cocked back ready to deliver what was sure to be a devastating blow.

"Ahhh!"

"Oh shit!"

Just when he was about to make contact, something strange happened. Midoriya stopped mid-flight and began clutching his head. The boy proceeded to let out a pained howl as his body started to violently jerk around in every direction.

"Midoriya-kun!" Blizzard shouted. Something was wrong, that much was obvious. It seemed like the boy was perfectly coherent a moment ago, but now that didn't seem to be the case. Was this a side effect of that mind control quirk?

"Fu...bu...ki…" Midoriya struggled to let out as he continued thrashing through the air. "Hurry up and do it..._you damn brat_!"

The woman paused for a second at those words. Midoriya just called her a "brat". But it wasn't just that. It was the way that he said it. The only person who ever called her that was her sister. Why did he suddenly call her that?

"Stop...wasting time and...knock me out!" The boy continued before letting out another scream. One that echoed throughout what was left of the factory.

Fubuki Katsuragi had no clue what was going on with the boy, but now wasn't the time to worry about that. She needed to put him down for good otherwise there would only be more unnecessary destruction. With her "Overdrive" still active, the '_psychokinesis'_ user held her arm out in front of her and envisioned herself wrapping her hand around Midoriya's neck.

"**Force Choke!"**

Almost instantly, Midoriya tried to clutch his hands around his neck but his arms appeared to pull themselves back down. It was as if someone else was in control of his body. For the next fifteen seconds or so, Blizzard made sure not to apply too much pressure on him to avoid causing injury. But once it was over, Midoriya was out cold.

As carefully as she could, Blizzard descended back down to ground with her student in tow. And she wasted no time in using every piece of scrap metal that she could see to create a cocoon around his body. She hated that she had to do this to him, but now wasn't the time to be careless. Once that was done, the green haired heroine gave the boy one last look before letting out a relieved sigh.

'_I used too much power with that last attack. My head's already pounding and I'm pretty sure my jaw is broken.'_

Her final act before powering down was pulling her phone out from her pocket and pressing the "emergency" button on the screen. Somehow the thing was still in one piece after all the abuse she just took. And with any luck, someone would be here soon to recover the two of them before it was too late. The moment Blizzard finally released her quirk, a heavy stream of blood came pouring out her nose and it felt like she got nailed in the back of the head with a sledgehammer. The woman dropped to her knees and the last thing she saw before everything went dark was Midoriya's bloodied face trapped in her makeshift cage.

'_I'm sorry, Midoriya-kun….'_

* * *

Darkness was all that Midoriya could see as he once again found himself floating around the endless void. The same one that seemed to have no end in sight. However, something was different. The last time that he was here it was like he was experiencing a dream. But now, it felt like a real place. One as tangible as the world he knew.

"How pathetic…."

The boy immediately rotated himself around and was met with the misty grey figure he encountered the last time that he was here. Only this time, the person was more defined. Like before, the only visible feature that he could see were her bright green eyes. But now her body was more solid as opposed to incorporeal.

"You!" He shouted at the figure.

"Understand this, brat. This will be the _only_ time I help you out. The next time you let this happen, I might not be nice enough to let you have your body back. Our personalities may have already started merging. But don't think for a second that I'll hesitate to take over."

"What are you talking about?" He questioned the "ghost" before him. He still had no clue who this person was, but something about her, especially her voice seemed really familiar.

The misty figure didn't respond before fading away. Once again, leaving Midoriya all alone in the endless void.

* * *

**Author's Notes: Y'know...writing this fight was a lot harder than I expected. I never intended for it to be long, but it was still difficult to plug in the things that I wanted. Hopefully you guys enjoyed it.**

**1\. So the truth has mostly been revealed. The next couple of chapters won't be as intense as the whole training camp arc. But a few key events are going to happen that will greatly affect the story. I'm going to do what I can to tone down the angst and add a bit of humor. Hopefully I'll be able to make it work.**

**2\. For all those wondering, Midoriya and Fubuki's fight wasn't caught on camera. I know that it's kind of a copout on my part, but I decided to give Midoriya a break. Especially with what's about to happen. And the fight between All Might and AfO went mostly the same as in canon. With only a few changes.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.**


	32. Aftermath

The last twenty-four hours have been pretty insane if Tokage had anything to say about it. Last night, she watched the epic showdown between All Might and some unknown villain on television along with her family. And to say that she had a newfound respect for her heroics teacher would be putting it mildly. Her phone hadn't stopped buzzing for the last few hours due to most of her classmates talking about the fight. But there was still one detail in particular that plagued the green haired girl's mind.

There had yet to be any announcement concerning the whereabouts of Midoriya or Bakugou. The only thing she had been able to gather was that the two of them were indeed rescued from the villains sometime in the middle of the battle. But aside from that, there were no other updates at this time.

As the girl scrolled through news articles on her laptop, she was patiently waiting for something to let her know that the boy was okay. Luckily, her silent prayer was answered when a text notification from Kayama popped up on her phone screen.

-(o)-

Whip: You didn't hear this from me but Midoriya is safe and sound. He's currently at Musutafu General Hospital getting some injuries treated. But he should make a full recovery in no time.

T-Rex: Really?

Whip: Yeah.

Whip: You should be able to visit him sometime tomorrow after he gives his statement. I can drive you over there after I'm done helping Vlad and Shouta get ready for the press conference tomorrow. Try to keep this quiet though.

T-Rex: Thank you so much!

Whip: No problem, just try to keep things G-rated when you finally see him. ;)

* * *

Midoriya slowly opened his eyes and turned towards the sound that suddenly woke him up. His vision was still blurry, and it took a second for him to adjust to the bright light directly overhead. But once things started to clear up, he instantly became confused at what he was looking at. Immediately to his right, was a figure with a very familiar patch of grey hair.

"Yanagi-san?" The boy groggily questioned.

"Well yes, but not the one that you're thinking of." The person responded in voice that he didn't recognize.

"What?" He gave them a confused look before the blurriness finally subsided. Now that he could actually see, the boy was able to tell that the person he was looking at wasn't his classmate. Instead, it was an elderly man with grey hair and black eyes.

"It's good to see that you're awake, young man. We were worried that you'd be out for another day or so."

"Who are you?"

"My apologies." The man quickly adjusts his glasses. "My name is Sho Yanagi, I'm one of the doctors currently tasked with looking over you. My granddaughter is actually one of your classmates."

It took a second for those words to register in Midoriya's brain. And once they did, he immediately tried to sit up. However, the moment he did he noticed that his arms were strapped down to the guard rails on the bed. "What?"

"Midoriya-kun, I need you to remain calm. Those restraints are there to keep you in place in case you're still under the influence of that villain's quirk." Sho Yanagi told the boy in an attempt to keep him calm.

"W-what's going on?" Midoriya asked in a panicked tone.

"Midoriya-kun, what is the last thing that you remember?"

Midoriya paused as he tried to recall everything that happened before waking up in this room. And to be honest, he wished that he hadn't. Almost instantly, a wave of memories came flooding into his mind and the boy had to stop himself from vomiting right there on the spot. He remembered all of it. The attack on the camp, his time spent with the villains, his talk with the masked man, even his fight with Katsuragi. All these events playing in his mind like the film reel of a movie that he didn't want to see.

"Oh my god…" The boy shakily said while placing his hand over his mouth.

"Judging by your reaction, you seem to recall a great deal of what you had to go through." Yanagi stated before placing his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Midoriya-kun, I don't know all that happened to you when you were captured. But I assure you that everything will be okay. Everyone is fine and you're not in any trouble."

"What?"

"Listen...just do what you can to remain calm. I know this might be a lot to take in since you just woke up, but please try not to overexert yourself. You overdid it with your quirk and you haven't fully recovered. We did a scan of your brain about an hour ago and everything was normal. Whatever that villain did to you, it's passed. You're perfectly fine and perfectly safe."

Despite the man's reassurance, Midoriya's heart was ready to leap out of his chest. He did his best to stay composed. But that was a lot easier said than done. His mind was still replaying the events that transpired and hole grew where his heart was supposed to be. He hurt people. Not just any people, heroes. The same ones who came to try and save him. Were they truly alright? What became of them? What was going to become of him? Yanagi just said that he wasn't in any trouble, but could he really trust the man's words?

The next thought that popped into his head was one that he couldn't really make sense of...his quirk. Although things were still a bit foggy, he clearly remembered that masked man telling All Might and Katsuragi that he gave him Tornado's quirk. But that couldn't have been true. Something like that was impossible. Quirks were genetic. They weren't something that could be passed between people. It violated the very understanding that society had of quirks altogether. However...deep down, something was telling him that it was true.

The boy was snapped out of his thoughts when the elderly man once again placed his hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry about any of that right now. Now that you're awake, we'll need to run a couple of quick tests to clear you to be freed from these ridiculous restraints. Do you think that you can handle that?"

All the boy did was give the man a weak nod. He was unsure of a lot of things right now, but all he could do for the time being was play along and do as he was told.

* * *

About an hour later Midoriya was finally done with the exams from Yanagi and a few other doctors that were assigned to him. The boy did his best to keep his mind off of what happened, but every now and then he would have flashbacks of the night before. And all of the new information that he was still having trouble processing.

To combat this, Midoriya just kept striking up conversation with his classmate's grandfather to keep his mind off of things. As it turns out, Sho Yanagi was one of the top neurologists in the country. And he was apparently an expert in telekinetic quirks who was called in just to look over him. It was odd how the man had a rather cheery disposition, which was a stark contrast from the younger Yanagi's stoic personality.

Once the testing was done, Midoriya was freed from his restraints and finally had the chance to move around freely. His body still felt a bit weak, but that was expected considering he used the "Overdrive" technique that Katsuragi explicitly warned him against.

A few hours later, the boy was finally reunited with his parents. And it was certainly shocking to see his father come into the room along with his mother. As it turns out, the black haired man booked the first flight back to Japan after hearing the news that he was kidnapped. Midoriya was certainly glad to have him around mainly because he was the perfect person to keep his mother from flooding the place with her tears. But that warmhearted reunion was short lived when a man in a trench coat came into the room.

"I apologize for interrupting." The man said politely. "I'm Detective Naomosa Tsukauchi, I'm currently overseeing the case regarding the '_League of Villains'_."

"Hello, Detective. What can we do for you?" Hisashi asked.

"I apologize for the abruptness of this, but I was hoping that you would allow me to talk to your son so that we can get his statement regarding the details of what transpired. To my understanding you've already been notified that your son will not be facing any sort of punishment. But I think it's best that we hurry and get this done so we can get out of his hair."

"Can't this wait?" Inko protested. "I just got my son back and you want to interrogate him about what happened?"

"I completely understand if you'd prefer to postpone this for a later date."

Midoriya stayed silent as he thought about what he should do. He was still trying to come to terms with everything that happened. And a lot of stuff was coming at him way too fast for any normal person to deal with. But he knew that the quicker he got this over with, the sooner he'd be able to relax.

"I understand sir, I think it's best that we hurry up and get this over with." The boy then said.

"Izuku?" Inko gave her son a bewildered look.

"It's fine, mom. I honestly just want to get this over with."

"Are you sure?" Hisashi asked him.

"Yeah…."

"Thank you for your cooperation, young man. I have a room available on the next floor up where we can talk. I won't be asking anything invasive, I just need your account of what happened. After that, our business will be concluded. "

All Midoriya did was give the man a silent nod before the four of them exited the room. While he and the detective made their way over the questioning area, Hisashi and Inko were escorted over to another part of the hospital. Once they reached their destination, Midoriya found himself in a plain looking office with a single window overseeing the city streets and a camera already set up on a tripod.

"Now, Midoriya-san, you don't have to say anything that you aren't comfortable with me knowing. The footage from this camera will only be used as a reference for later on when we finally track down the men who kidnapped you. It's strictly confidential."

"I understand."

"There's a few things that I want to cover, but I think it's best for you to just give your side of the story."

"So...where do you want to start?"

"Let's begin with the masked man. When did you first meet him?"

The green haired boy let out a long sigh before mustering up the courage to speak. He really didn't know where to begin with that. So in his mind, it was best to just start from that day on the rooftop.

"I guess it would be easier to start at the beginning. I first met him about ten months before the start of the school year…."

* * *

Unbeknownst to Midoriya, the camera was actually a live feed into a separate location on the other end of the hallway. Inside that room were Principal Nezu, Recovery Girl, a heavily bandaged Toshinori Yagi, Gran Torino and Sir Nighteye who all watched via a laptop.

For a good forty-five minutes the heroes listened to every last word that came out of the boy's mouth with rapt attention. And to say that the mood quickly shifted would be an understatement. As more and more time passed, it was hard for the adults to wrap their heads around everything that they heard. But there was one detail in particular that stood out the most.

"Toshinori...for the love of God, please tell me that boy is not telling the truth." The '_jet'_ quirk user pinched the bridge of his nose as he glared towards the blonde haired man.

Yagi didn't respond, instead the man just stood silent. He himself was still reeling from the testimony. A lot of things suddenly started to make sense and the man honestly had no clue how to react. After listening to Midoriya's account of that day on the rooftop he couldn't believe what he had heard. Did Midoriya truly think that he said those words to him? Toshinori Yagi would never let such disgusting things come out of his mouth. It would go against everything that he stood for as a person and a hero.

"That boy is going to need some serious counseling." Recovery Girl shook her head.

"Indeed." Nezu nodded. The situation was way worse than what he anticipated. "I'll have a chat with Inui-kun later to set up a session with him. But that's not the only thing that concerns me..."

"You're right." The healing heroine interjected. "The scarring on that boy's body is another issue altogether. I haven't interacted with him that much, but he obviously has some deep-rooted depression issues that were never properly addressed."

"This is a goddamn mess..." Gran Torino continued shaking his head.

"I need to talk to him!" Yagi suddenly declared, surprising most of the others in the room.

"What?"

"It's obvious that young Midoriya's memories have been manipulated. More so than he probably realizes. I think it's best for me to talk to him and set the record straight."

"I strongly advise against that, Toshinori-kun." Nezu told the man.

"What?"

"I agree with Nezu." Recovery Girl chimed in. "That child has been through a lot in the last few days. His whole world has practically been turned upside down. And the last thing he needs right now is you going up to him to try and prove your innocence."

Yagi wanted to protest this, but it was hard to argue with the woman's logic. Although he agreed that it was best to give his student some time to recover from this entire ordeal. He still felt the need to clear the air between them. It was obvious that All for One had some bigger scheme planned for the boy. But he'll have to wait until a later time to figure out exactly what that was.

"How are those other two doing?" Gran Torino then asked, hoping to quickly change the subject.

"Bakugou woke up a couple of hours ago and I've already patched up his arms. I'm going to check up on him immediately after this." Recovery Girl answered.

"What about Katsuragi-san?"

"She's still recovering from having her jaw reset, but I suspect that she'll wake up pretty soon. Her and Midoriya both overused their quirks but it looks like she expanded _a lot _more energy than he did."

"Forgive me for my rudeness, but we need to address the situation with her immediately." Nighteye finally spoke up. "That woman will undoubtedly have some questions about what All for One said. And we need to figure out exactly what we're going to tell her."

Silence fell over the group for a few seconds as everyone pondered over the man's words. If the information they now had was true, then Midoriya was in possession of her sister's quirk. It was safe to say that All for One wasn't lying. And the timelines added up almost perfectly. But now they were going to have to figure out a way to break the news to the woman without overwhelming her.

As expected, Nighteye was completely against telling the woman the truth altogether. His reasoning was that it could put the secret of '_One for All'_ in jeopardy. However, after a brief discussion the '_foresight'_ user agreed to only tell her the bare minimum of information. Only the parts that were relevant to what she needed to know.

In any case, everyone knew that they were going to have a long and difficult road ahead of them.

* * *

"Thank you, Midoriya-san. I have no further questions for you." Tsukauchi said to Midoriya after the boy was finally done talking.

Never before had the man hated his ability to detect lies. Because right now he truly wished that none of what he heard was true. But as much as he despised having to put the victim of a kidnapping through a "soft interrogation", the detective still had a job to do. The only bright side to all of this was that he now had a good enough reason to begin a formal investigation into the boy's previous school. There were a few gaps in his inquiry that Midoriya had unknowingly filled during his testimony. And he was more than happy to submit a request for his department to immediately look into Aldera Junior High.

"Yes sir." The boy replied.

"I'm sorry to have to put you through all of this. But rest assured that the police will be out of your hair."

"So...I'm n-not in any trouble?" He nervously asked.

"I guarantee that nothing will happen to you. The villain himself admitted to using a mind control quirk on you. So you can't be held responsible for your actions while under the influence of his quirk."

"I see…" Something about that still didn't sit well with the boy. The fact that he injured so many people weighed heavily on his mind. Along with everything else that happened. "What about everyone else?"

"The heroes that were present were already briefed on the situation. And they were more than forgiving of what you were forced to do, especially given the circumstances. You won't have to worry about any type of backlash from them." The man continued. It was mostly the truth, and the only issue they were going to have to deal with on that end was an already agitated Endeavor.

"Alright…"

"And since there were no witnesses to what happened between you and Blizzard, we can sweep that under the rug pretty easily. The HPSC will clean that up and take care of the damages. So as far as the public is concerned, it never happened."

Midoriya should've been happy after hearing that. He was pretty much going to walk away from this entire debacle without any actual consequences. But that did nothing to change his feelings on the matter. He may not have been in control of himself during the fight, but that didn't make it any better. On top of all the heroes that got hurt, Bakugou was an entirely different issue altogether. He was going to have to face the '_explosion'_ user at some point. And he could already tell that it wasn't going to be far from a pleasant encounter.

'_Maybe I should think about switching schools?'_ He said to himself in slightly joking matter before Tsukauchi stood up from his seat.

"Well...our business here is concluded, Midoriya-san. You're free to go and relax for the rest of your stay. Once again, I do apologize for having to put you through this."

"It's fine, sir."

"In any case, I hope you have a nice and relaxing rest of your day. Make sure that you get plenty of rest. Now that this portion is done, you'll be able to receive visitors tomorrow depending on what the hospital staff says. I'm sure that a lot of your classmates are eager to see that you're in good health."

"Yes...thank you, sir." The boy dryly stated before the two of them began making their way back to his room.

Now that all of this was over, all Midoriya wanted to do was rest and figure what he was going to do next.

* * *

The next day, Tokage was rapidly moving through the building as she made her way over to where the receptionist told her that Midoriya was supposed to be staying. Naturally she wasn't allowed to run in a hospital, but that certainly didn't stop the girl from walking at a very brisk pace.

'_319, 320, 321...here it is! Room 322!'_ The girl's feet came to a grinding halt when she finally found what she was looking for.

Tokage paused while reaching for the handle, only now realizing how totally unprepared she was for this situation. On the other side of this door was Midoriya, and she had no clue what to expect. She had no idea what he had to go through during his time being held captive by those villains and wondered what she should do. A part of her wanted to grill the guy about everything that happened and slap him for giving himself up in the first place. But another part of her wanted to just wrap her arms around him and give him the biggest hug ever.

Deciding that waiting was a lot more painful than taking action, the green haired teen simply turned the handle and flung the door open. Completely forgetting to knock altogether. The moment the entrance was opened, she was met with the sight of Midoriya sitting up on the bed and stretching his arms out above his head. The boy looked fine and didn't have any obvious injuries that could be seen at first glance.

"Izuku!" Tokage blurted out, startling the boy enough to make him jump.

"S-Setsuna!" He widened his eyes at the sight of her.

Tokage didn't really know what came over her at that moment. But the green haired girl let instincts take over and rushed him without any regard for what was going on around her. In the fraction of a second, she closed the distance between the two of them and crashed her lips into his while grabbing either side of his face.

The young couple stayed in that position for a good ten seconds before she finally decided to let go of him. Naturally, Midoriya was a blushing mess because of the sudden act of affection and the boy's eyes were practically swirling around in his head.

"I'm so glad that you're okay!" She smiled at him while clutching his shoulders. "Don't you ever do something that stupid ever again! Do you know how fucking worried I was about you?!"

"Setsuna...w-w-what are yo-"

"Izuku?" The metaphorical record in Tokage's head scratched at the sound of another voice in the room. And against her better judgement, the girl turned her head to the right and found herself looking at two other people whose presence she failed to register when she suddenly barged in.

One was a short woman with green hair and matching eyes who had an expression of pure confusion plastered onto her face. The other was a tall man with curly, black hair and black eyes. He was rather plain looking, but his most prominent feature were the numerous freckles scattered all over his face. Tokage was pretty damn good when it came to math, so it was easy for her to solve the equation of who exactly she was looking at.

'_Oh...shit….'_

"Well...this is unexpected." The man said in a slightly amused tone.

"I-Izuku...w-w-who...who is this?" The woman questioned.

Seeing as there was no way out of this painfully awkward and embarrassing situation. Midoriya mustered up as much courage as he could and gave the two adults a wobbly grin. "Dad kind of already knows what's going so…" He started as the redness on his cheeks further intensified. "Mom, this is Setsuna Tokage...and she is my _girlfriend_….."

…

…

…

"What?!"

As much as she wanted to be happy about being referred to as the boy's "girlfriend", Tokage quickly tried to find a way to remedy this total blunder that she put herself into. Deciding that it was best to just lean in and play to her strengths, the girl gave the elder Midoriya members a confident smirk that showed off her razor sharp teeth.

"It's nice to meet you guys! At least now I know where Izuku gets all his good looks from."

'_Nailed it…'_

* * *

**Author's Notes: So yeah...pretty short update. This was mainly a transition chapter just to clarify the situation. Obviously most of this stuff isn't going to be going away anytime soon. But I just wanted to establish the situation. I'd like to think that everyone was pretty understanding of what happened and it would be easy for some influential people to keep certain things under wraps. Especially when it comes to this.**

**1\. Midoriya won't be having an "easy" time for a while, but now that I can finally bring all of the 1-B guys back into the story he'll have a pretty good support group. Plus there will be a new member added to the "Izu-crew" in the coming chapters.**

**2\. I decided to save the conversation and "reveal" with Fubuki for the next chapter. I got something pretty interesting cooked up for that and it's something that one of the readers thought up. I think you guys will like it.**

**As always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.**


	33. Mid-Day Outing

It had been two days since Midoriya was released from the hospital and allowed to go home with his family.

And as strange as it was to admit, the boy was finally able to relax considering everything that happened to him. But despite getting to rest in his own bed and eat some of his favorite food, there was still a lot running through his mind.

The first was his uncomfortable talk with Recovery Girl and his parents during his stay at the hospital. The healing heroine recommended that he get counseling from Hound Dog if his parents decided to let him go back to U.A.. The reason for this was because of the scarring on his abdomen that he had been able to hide up until this point.

Despite the reassurance that he wasn't cutting himself anymore, the woman still thought that it was a good idea for him to see the man at least once every week and get some type of evaluation from him. And both Hisashi and Inko had a hard time disagreeing with her. They still had time to come to a decision, but either way the boy knew that it needed to happen regardless if he wanted to remain in the hero course.

The second thing still weighing heavily on his conscience was his quirk. Or more accurately...Tornado's quirk. Midoriya still had no clue what to think about all of this, but the possibility that he was in possession of that woman's quirk was difficult to think about. Forget the possibility of quirk transference being a real thing. How could he even begin to rationalize something like this being true? This entire situation was like some sick joke. On one hand, he wasn't just a late bloomer like he thought he was all this time. Meaning that he was truly born quirkless and the fact that he now had this quirk was the result of plain old "dumb luck" as one would call it. On the other hand, it was hard to come to terms with this information.

The boy's mind then flashed over to Katsuragi. Did she know? What were her thoughts about all of this? If he was having a hard time, she might've had it even worse. Not only did this mean that her sister was truly dead, but someone that she knew was now in possession of her quirk. What exactly did the woman think about him now? Would she hate him? Pity him? In all honesty, this was all too much for Midoriya to be thinking about right now when he should be focused on resting.

Just when the boy sat up from his bed to make his way over to the kitchen, he suddenly got a notification on his phone.

-(o)-

T-Rex: Hey! How are you doing?

Rabbit: Good

T-Rex: That's good!

T-Rex: So...on a scale of 1-10...how bad of a first impression did I make on your parents?

Rabbit: I don't think it was bad at all. My dad actually likes your "spunky" attitude.

T-Rex: And your mom?

Rabbit: I think she still needs time to process.

T-Rex: I wouldn't doubt it.

T-Rex: So...do you think you can hang out today?

Rabbit: My mom doesn't really want me to leave the house.

Rabbit: But I can talk to her about it. To be honest, I need to get some fresh air.

T-Rex: Awesome, we haven't been on a date in a while.

Rabbit: I have my last check up at the hospital this morning. But I should be free this afternoon.

T-Rex: Sweet, I can meet you at your house. Everything will be my treat!

Rabbit: You really don't have to do that.

T-Rex: You're right. But I think the situation calls for me to pamper you a little bit.

Rabbit: It's fine, really.

T-Rex: Is 15:00 good?

Rabbit: Yeah, that should be fine.

T-Rex: Cool, I'll see you then.

Rabbit: Alright.

* * *

Later that morning, Midoriya and his parents made the journey over to the hospital. Upon arrival, they were quickly escorted into the room that Recovery Girl was using for the day and were surprised to see that Katsuragi was already there.

Midoriya really didn't know how he should act around the woman right now. Especially considering all that happened up until this point. He couldn't even find the courage to look her in the eye when they greeted each other. Katsuragi seemed to be her usual self. And she didn't appear to harbor any type of resentment towards him that he was able to pick up on. But he could tell that she was exhausted judging by the bags under her eyes.

Once the greetings were out of the way, Principal Nezu of all people came walking into the room. After formally introducing himself to Inko and Hisashi, the unidentified mammal began explaining what they were all doing here. The man brought the two elder Midoriya's up to speed on the whole situation concerning his quirk and to say that the two adults took a while to process the information would be putting it mildly. Hisashi was doing his best to take it all in while Inko nearly fainted a few times.

After a robust round of questions and explanations, Nezu was finally comfortable enough to make his proposal.

"Midoriya-kun, do you know how quirks work exactly?" Nezu asked him.

"Yes, sir…" The boy nodded. "It mainly has to do with the "quirk factor", which determines a person's physical and genetic traits. The key component for this are "plus-alpha" cells. And those are unique to each individual."

"That's exactly correct." Recovery Girl smiled. The elderly woman was actually impressed that a teenage boy knew something like off the top of his head.

"So what's that have to do with anything?" Inko inquired.

"I have a theory." Nezu announced. "Like Midoriya-kun said, plus-alpha cells are unique to an individual. They even contain that person's DNA. We don't exactly know _how_ All for One's quirk works, but I believe that it has something to do with the transference of the plus-alpha cells themselves. If that makes sense."

"So what you're saying is..._if _Izuku is actually in possession of Tornado's quirk, then his body might contain her cells." Hisashi then said.

"That's exactly correct, Midoriya-san! Of course this is just a theory, but it might be our best bet to verify whether or not that man's claim was true."

"I guess that's why you asked me to come here." Katsuragi interjected. "You need me to be a frame of reference. If this theory of yours is correct, then mine and Midoriya-kun's cells will be a match."

"Yes."

"This is all so confusing…" Inko began rubbing her head. The woman honestly didn't understand all this talk about quirks and DNA. She was a legal assistant, not a doctor.

"So what do you say, Midoriya-kun?" Nezu then turned to the boy. "Of course this is all voluntary. But I believe that by doing this we'll finally be able to put this case to rest. All we'll need to do is get a blood sample from both you and Katsuragi-kun and then Chiyo-san will be able to analyze them. The whole process will only take a few minutes."

Midoriya took a moment to think about all of this. He'll admit that it was hard to argue with Nezu's logic. The man was one of the smartest beings on the planet after all. But the fact that they were even talking about this was still pretty crazy to him. Part of him was interested in seeing if it would actually work. But the other was more than a bit terrified of finding out the result.

If this theory was correct, then it would only confirm what he had been dreading for the last couple of days. It would prove that he indeed was in possession of someone else's quirk. And not just any person, but a former top hero. He pondered over this for a good thirty seconds before letting out a bit of a sigh. There was no point in trying to avoid it. And confirming whether or not all of this was true would finally bring an end to all of this nonsense.

"Alright...let's do it." He said.

"What about you, Katsuragi-kun?"

"I'm on board with it as well." The green haired woman replied. "It's worth giving it a shot."

"Excellent!" The unidentified mammal clapped his paws together. "It will only take Chiyo-san a couple of minutes to get ready. After that, we can collect the samples and analyze the results."

Everyone gave the man a quick nod before Midoriya and Katsuragi were ushered into the hallway by Recovery Girl. Although they were still a bit skeptical, the entire group was more than interested in seeing what the result of this was going to be.

* * *

After Midoriya and Katsuragi had their blood drawn, it took Recovery Girl all of twenty-five minutes to process the results and make her way back into the room. The atmosphere quickly shifted and Midoriya could feel his heartbeat rapidly increasing with both nervousness and anticipation. It was like he was stuck in some weird space. One where he was both anxious and dreadful about hearing what exactly was on that piece of paper.

"So...what's the verdict?"

On the other side of the room, Katsuragi wasn't doing much better herself. These last couple of days weren't exactly easy for her. And she was still trying to wrap her head around all of this. Not only did the woman have to deal with learning the truth about her sister's fate. She had to come to terms with the idea that her quirk was stolen and had been given to her own student. Deep down the woman had a feeling that it was true. All the signs seemed to be pointing in that direction. But that didn't make it any less hard to believe.

Time seemed to stand still before Recovery Girl let out a short breath and gave the two greenettes a curious look. "I ran the test twice just to be safe _and_ confirmed it with one of the other doctors in the lab. Both sets of cells...are a match." She announced, taking a moment to pause before continuing. "I can confirm that the plus alpha-cells in Midoriya's body are in fact Tatsumaki's. Siblings usually share fifty percent of their DNA with each other. And that is exactly the case with both samples."

Silence fell over the room as everyone took a moment to absorb the healing heroine's words. No one really knew exactly what to say in this situation. Their suspicions/fears had been confirmed and now it was a matter of what they were going to do next.

"Well...I guess all those jokes about us being related weren't so wrong after all." Katsuragi finally broke the tension with a slight grin on her face.

"Y-yeah...I guess so…" Midoriya responded with a wobbly grin of his own.

"Well shit…" Hisashi finally released the breath that he had been holding.

"So what happens now?" Inko nervously asked.

"Nothing." Recovery Girl quickly reassured the woman. "We just needed to confirm whether or not this all was true. Now that we have done that, we can bring this matter to a close."

"I see."

"Excuse me Midoriya-san, but is it alright if I talk to your son for a few minutes?" Katsurgi looked to the boy's parents. The two adults shared a brief look before glancing over to their son. The green haired teen still looked particularly uneasy and they were worried about what was going through his head right now.

"Yeah, I'm fine with that." The boy then said before standing up.

"There's a room on the other end of the hall that I'm using as an office for the day. You two can talk in there." The elderly heroine said to them.

"While Midoriya-kun and Katsuragi-kun have their chat, I was hoping that the three of us could talk as well." Nezu said to Inko and Hisashi.

The two of them simply nodded before allowing their son to leave. Midoriya was curious about what Katsuragi wanted to say to him. A few things popped into his head and none of them were particularly pleasant. But in his opinion, it was better to just get this over with.

* * *

Barely two minutes later, the two telekinesis users were inside of the aforementioned office and Katsuragi was quick to lock the door behind her. Midoriya's already agitated nerves were getting worse with each passing second and he had no clue what the woman was about to say to him. There was a painfully awkward silence between the two of them that seemed to last for eternity.

"F-Fubuki-san...I...I don't really know what to s-say right now." He shakily said.

"To be honest, me neither. I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this."

"I...I'm sorry." Midoriya apologized. He doesn't really know why, but it seemed like the appropriate thing to say.

"What for?"

"Your sister." He replied. "She's...I mean, h-her quirk..."

Katsuragi's gaze was stone cold for a moment before her face softened into a smile. "Look Midoriya-kun, I came to terms with my sister's death a long time ago. All this did for me was confirm what I already knew. So you have no reason to feel guilty for any of that. In fact, the only thing I'm worried about right now is you."

"What?" He gave her a perplexed look.

"I'll admit that I'm having a hard time with all of this. But I bet that doesn't even hold a candle to what you're going through. How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine." He said in a not-so-convincing tone while averting his gaze.

"I can tell that's not true. You look exhausted and there might as well be a cloud over your head."

All the boy did was remain silent. He had always been told that he was as easy to read as a book. So it shouldn't be a surprise that the woman was able to pick up on his mood.

"Look, I want you to know that I am in no way, shape or form upset with you. Frankly, it would be ridiculous of me to even think that way. You didn't ask for any of this."

"But still…"

"As long as we're being honest, I'm actually kind of glad. If there was anyone that I'd want to have that quirk, it would definitely be you."

"What?" The boy lifted his head. Did he hear that right?

"Yeah." She nodded. "You're a smart kid and you obviously want to become a hero for the right reasons. That's a lot more than I can say for myself at your age. So it's kind of reassuring to know that my sister's quirk is the hands of someone so capable."

"T-that's really nice of you to say."

"However...I can already tell that you're letting this affect you a lot more than it should. I understand that a lot has been thrown at you in a very short amount of time. But it's important for you to not focus on the negatives. I can practically feel the sadness radiating off your body."

"Well, that's a lot easier said than done."

"I know, believe me I've been there. I hit a rough patch when my sister first disappeared and let that consume more than I should've. And because of that, I think it's better for you to focus on the bright side when it comes to these kinds of things. I'm not saying that you should just pretend that none of this stuff ever happened. But, you shouldn't let yourself get dragged down into a hole because of this."

"So...what do you think I should do then?" Midoriya then asked.

"The easy answer would be to just take it one day at a time and do what you can to relax and stay positive. I know it sounds incredibly cliche, but you'd be surprised at how effective it is."

"I see…" He said quietly. Although she did have a point, trying not to let any of this get to him was a tall order. His entire world had been flipped upside down in a matter of days. And there was still so much that he wasn't sure about. Before he could continue, Katsuragi placed her hand on his shoulder and gave him a warm smile.

"If you ever need someone to talk to, I'll be more than happy to listen. Besides, the two of us are going to be spending _a lot_ of time together in the future anyway."

"What?"

"Of course! Now that we officially know that you have my sister's quirk it's pretty much my responsibility to train you to make sure that you master it. Plus, there's no way that you were going to get rid of me that easily. You did promise that you'd join my agency after you graduate."

"Yeah, I g-guess you're right."

"Now that I think about it, since you have onee-chan's DNA inside of you that really does make us siblings in some weird round-about sort of way." Katsuragi then said in a joking manner to lighten the mood a bit. "Y'know, I've always wanted to have a younger sibling."

Midoriya was able to pick up on the woman's attempt to cheer him up and decided to just roll with it. "I guess I should start getting used to calling you "onee-chan" then." He quipped.

"Just don't let Ozehana-chan hear you say that. I already have to deal with her making jokes about it whenever you come up in conversation around the agency."

"Yeah...a few of my classmates would have a field day with that."

With the mood now lightened a bit, the two pseudo-siblings agreed to rejoin the others to conclude their business for the day. Midoriya would be the first to admit that he still had his reservations about this entire situation. But the fact that Katsuragi was so agreeable about the whole thing did help out a lot.

'_Try and stay positive, huh?'_

* * *

Later that afternoon, Tokage found herself walking up the steps to Midoriya's apartment building. The girl was uncharacteristically nervous about this encounter. Which was more than understandable considering her less-than-stellar introduction to the boy's parents. In fact, Tokage was determined to not accidentally make a fool of herself...again.

As funny as it sounded, the girl ended up asking Kendou and Shiozaki for advice on what to do. Seeing as she didn't have a mom of her own. And Kayama was far from the best reference point to use for these kinds of things. She thought it was best to look to her friends for help. Which didn't go as well as she hoped considering their advice to her was to essentially "not be her usual self".

Before she knew it, Tokage was standing in front of the door and paused for a moment before ringing the bell. The girl only had to wait a couple of seconds before Inko appeared before her and welcomed her into their home.

"Tokage-chan...i-it's nice to see you." The woman greeted in a peculiar tone.

"Hello Midoriya-san, how are you doing today?" She responded with a polite bow. Tokage typically wasn't one for formalities. But there was no harm in going the extra mile.

"I'm doing well. Come on inside, Izuku told me that you two would be hanging out today. He's still getting ready, but you can just have a seat on the sofa."

The girl nodded before entering the apartment and sitting down in the aforementioned seat. What she wasn't expecting however, was for Inko to sit down in the chair directly across from her. With only the small coffee table separating them. There was an awkward silence that lingered for a few moments as Tokage subconsciously tried to keep her posture straight and not appear too relaxed.

In the back of her mind, Tokage could tell that her boyfriend's mom was sizing her up. And she had to stop herself from trying to break the tension with some slightly inappropriate joke that probably wouldn't go over too well with her.

"You have a really nice place here." The girl then spoke. "I really like the decorations."

"Thank you." The green haired woman replied.

Inko really didn't know what to make of this girl. She seemed nice, and she certainly didn't want to judge her unnecessarily. But the woman was still trying to come to terms with her son having a girlfriend that he never bothered telling her about. And the fact that her ex-husband who was living on the other side of the planet had knowledge of this certainly left a bad taste in her mouth.

"So Tokage-chan, what do you and Izuku plan on doing today?"

"Nothing really, just going out for a bite to eat and chilling out."

"I see…" The woman continued sipping a cup of tea that seemed to magically appear out of nowhere.

'_This is so awkward.'_ The girl said to herself. Isn't this the exact opposite of how things were supposed to go? Wasn't the guy supposed to be the one who gets silently scruntinized by the girl's parents when he first comes to her house? Now that she thought about it, she really needed to stop watching those sappy romance movies with her sister.

Thankfully, this painful encounter soon ended when Midoriya came into the living room. The boy was wearing a simple pair of khaki shorts along with a red t-shirt with the katakana for "business casual" written out on it. Which was pretty amusing seeing as the girl was also wearing a pair of khaki shorts. Except she was sporting a black t-shirt with the picture of a velociraptor on it.

"Hey." The boy greeted her with a slightly nervous smile on her face.

"Hey." She smiled back. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I hope you two have a wonderful time. Don't stay out too late." Inko said before standing up and making her way towards the kitchen to start preparing dinner.

"Yeah, no problem."

The young couple were quick to take their leave and Tokage was finally able to let out a breath she didn't even realize that she was holding. Once the two were far enough away from the door, the girl turned to Midoriya and gave him a toothy smirk.

"I don't think your mom likes me very much."

"What makes you say that?" He tilted his head in confusion.

"She was giving me this weird look before you showed up."

"Don't worry about it." He reassured her. "She's kind of like me when it comes to being awkward around people."

"Speaking of which, where's your dad at?"

"He's staying in a hotel not too far away from here."

"Cool." She responded. At the very least, she knew that she had the approval of at least one of the boy's parents.

"So, where are we going?" Midoriya then asked, hoping to change subjects.

"There's a ramen shop I looked up that isn't too far away from here. It's supposed to be pretty good judging by the reviews I saw online."

"Cool." Was all the boy said.

Now that they were away from any potentially prying eyes, Tokage finally felt comfortable enough to grab the boy's hand and interlocked their fingers together. It was weird how she missed doing this small act of affection considering they had only been separated for a few days. But now she had the entire day to make up for lost time. And with that, the young couple were ready to embark on their impromptu date.

* * *

Barely an hour had passed by the time the two greenettes were walking out of the ramen shop that Tokage picked out. And everything had been going pretty well so far. The two spent the first part of their date catching up on what all happened after the events of the camp and Midoriya was relieved to know that everyone who was subject to the gas attack were only out for about a day before waking up. The boy made a mental note to tell his classmates that he was okay since they hadn't gotten any updates on what was going on with him.

"Man, that food was pretty damn good!" Tokage cheered as the two strolled down the city street.

"No kidding." Midoriya smiled. "I haven't had any pork ramen in a while."

"We should definitely make that place a regular spot. Small shops always have the best selection."

"Sounds good to me."

"So...I really didn't have anything else planned besides that. Is there anything that you want to do? Or somewhere that you wanted to go?"

"Nothing really comes to mind."

"Oh come on, there's gotta be somewhere. Aren't there any spots that you usually go to just...chill?"

Midoriya took a moment to think about possible venues that would be good for the two of them to relax. But the boy was drawing a blank. As sad as it sounded, he never really had a chance to explore the town as much as other people his age. Since he didn't even have friends up until recently, the boy mostly spent his time either at home or at the library. However, there was one place that did pop into his head.

"Well, there's Dagoba Beach. But it's really not a place for people to hang out."

"Sounds good to me." Tokage gave him a devious grin. "But I'm not really prepared for a beach outing. Unless...you're just saying that so you can get a chance to see me in a swimsuit~." The girl then smirked even wider and wiggled her eyebrows at him.

Of course, this slight teasing was enough to force a bit of redness onto the boy's cheeks. "N-no that's not it all."

"Yeah, I figured. But hey, the two of us can just swim around in our underwear. I made sure to match my bra and panties today so no one would look at us funny. Plus, I've been dying to get you out of that shirt for a while now" The girl continued her teasing by leaning in a bit closer and tugging at the collar of her shirt to give him a peek at her blue bra-strap.

"S-Setsuna!" A now fully flustered Midoriya squeaked out.

Tokage immediately began laughing after that. The girl was worried that he was starting to get used to her antics. So she was glad that she could get him to fold so easily. But in all seriousness, spending some time at the beach was a pretty good idea. It was the perfect place for the two of them to spend some quality time together.

"So, why don't you want to go there?"

"It's actually where I go to train my quirk. The place isn't really suited for hanging out. It's kind of a dump, but it's where I spend most of my time." Midoriya explained.

The fact that Midoriya just admitted to spending most of his free time at a dump quickly reminded Tokage that the boy was essentially a hermit up until recently. She made a mental note to make sure that he got out more. But seeing as she didn't have any better ideas besides maybe catching a movie, the girl decided to just roll with it.

"Eh, I guess it's worth checking out." The girl shrugged.

"O-oh, alright." The boy nodded before the two turned the corner and began making their way over to the beach.

* * *

Once the two finally arrived at their destination, Tokage was certainly surprised by what she saw. When Midoriya said that this place was a dump, she was actually expecting it to be...well a dump. But that certainly wasn't the case. Along the way, the boy explained to her that he had been cleaning up the place ever since his quirk manifested. And it plainly obvious that he was doing a stellar job.

The entire beach looked like something out of an old era videogame. There were massive cubes and pyramids of garbage neatly stacked along the coastline and even a few pillars that Midoriya used to create a makeshift obstacle course for his flying. Tokage would be first to admit that it actually looked pretty fun and it was clear that Midoriya had put a ton of work into this place.

"So you've been cleaning this place up all by yourself?"

"Y-yeah." The boy nervously admitted. Why he decided to bring his girlfriend here of all places was a complete mystery to him. In hindsight, maybe he should have suggested a movie theater. Or anything even remotely more "date worthy".

"Holy shit, that's insane! It must've taken months to get it like this. You even neatly stacked all those old refrigerators over there." The girl pointed to one of the pillars about a hundred meters away from them.

"Yeah…" He laughed.

"So where do you usually chill out around here? There's gotta be some kind of rest spot that you use."

"I usually just make a chair." He replied.

"Make a chair?"

Instead of responding, Midoriya activated his quirk and used it to bring over some nearby pieces of scrap metal. Tokage then watched as he quite literally constructed two decent size chairs right in front of them. Once he was finished the boy took the liberty of sitting down in one and motioning for her to do the same. However, the green haired girl had other plans.

Instead of sitting in the one that he made for her, Tokage walked right over to Midoriya and sat in the boy's lap. She even went a bit further by draping his arm over her shoulder and snuggling up really close to him. Close enough that their faces were practically touching.

"Much better~." She said to him with a satisfied look on her face.

"I'm glad that you're comfortable." The boy blushed.

The two remained in that position and engaged in small talk for a good ten minutes before Tokage finally decided to put her plan in motion.

"Hey, you said that no one ever comes around here, right?"

"No not really, why?"

Tokage's face quickly shifted into an almost predator-like smile before the girl grabbed him by the chin and tilted his face down towards hers. "Because now that we're alone, I finally get that chance to do this."

Midoriya didn't even get a chance to respond before the girl's lips crashed into his own and he felt Tokage throw her arms around his neck. His heart rate suddenly skyrocketed and quickly realized that "relaxing" was the last thing on the girl's mind right now. Before he knew it, Tokage broke away from the kiss and he could practically see the lewd intent behind her eyes.

"So…" She said while rubbing the side of his face. "You wanna make out?"

…

…

…

"Huh?"

"Do you wanna make out? Don't get me wrong, I definitely enjoy the regular kisses. But I think it's time that we turn up the heat a bit." She told him. Maybe it was all the blood starting to rush to her head, but in her opinion they were long overdue for this step.

Midoriya sputtered for a second before managing to put together his response. "I-I-I've never d-done that before."

"Yeah, that's pretty obvious. But neither have I. Besides, it can't be that hard now can it?"

"Uh...s-sure." The boy nodded. It wasn't like he was opposed to the idea, quite the opposite actually. He was honestly more surprised that the girl just came out and asked him as opposed to just doing it.

"Awesome, now just let me…" Tokage grinned before readjusting her position. A moment ago she was just sitting on top of him. Now the girl was full-on straddling him and he was thankful that no one was around to see this.

Without any hesitation, Tokage leaned in and once again placed her lips on top of his. Out of instinct, Midoriya wrapped his arms around her waist and that was all that she needed to begin the next part. The girl ever-so-slightly parted his lips with her tongue and before they knew it, the two of them were engaging in a full on makeout session. In truth, Tokage really had no idea what she was doing. But she had heard enough from both her sister and Kayama to have a general idea of how to go about this.

This lasted for all of ten seconds before Midoriya suddenly jerked his back and covered his mouth with his hand. "Ow!"

"What's wrong?!" The now blushing teen shot him a concerned look.

"I think I just cut my tongue…"

It took a second for those words to register in her mind before Tokage came to a rather embarrassing realization. One that she probably should've taken into account before trying to go ahead with her plan. '_Oh fuck...my teeth!'_ The girl immediately chastised herself for forgetting something so obvious.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah." He reassured her. But that did nothing to lessen the blow to the girl's self esteem.

The mood quickly shifted to one of complete awkwardness and Tokage wished that she had some sort of time manipulation quirk to remedy this blunder of hers. After taking a couple of minutes to recover, the young couple sat in silence while looking off towards the ocean. Mainly because neither of them knew exactly what to say about what just happened.

"Sorry about that." The girl apologized once again. Only for Midoriya to insist that he wasn't upset about it. Actually, the boy found the whole ordeal kind of funny.

With that rather unpleasant experience now behind them, the young couple decided to leave the beach and wander around the city for the rest of the afternoon. Nothing exciting happened after that, but it was still an enjoyable day nonetheless. Eventually it got dark and two agreed to part ways so that Tokage could get home before it was too late. And like usual, she was sure to plant a long kiss on the boy's lips before getting onto her train. One that didn't involve potentially causing him another oral injury.

Aside from that small mishap from earlier, the two of them had a great time. And much to her chagrin, Tokage reminded herself to ask her sister for some advice when it came to kissing your boyfriend when you have a full set of razor sharp teeth in your mouth.

* * *

After finally returning home and having dinner with his parents, Midoriya was laying on his bed while scrolling through his phone. Unfortunately for him, all of the major hero news sites were still running the story about All Might and his fight against All for One. Which was the last thing that he wanted to think about right now. The boy still had no clue about what he was going to do when he ran into his heroics teacher again. But that was a bridge he prefered to cross at a later date.

Deciding to take Katsuragi's advice and keep his focus away from all that, the green haired teen ended up flipping through his social media accounts to see what else was going on in the world. Much to his surprise, there was a story about a bombing on I-Island barely twenty-four hours ago. And from what he could tell, it was pretty similar to ones that were happening in Japan. Now that he thought about it, there hadn't been any of those in the last few weeks.

This also reminded Midoriya that Unohana was supposed to be in that area. It had been a couple of weeks since he last talked to the pink eyed boy and he thought that it was a good idea to check up on him to see if he was safe. No doubt the other teen had heard the news about what happened to him as well.

Just as he opened up his contacts list, a text notification popped up on his screen. One that was from his grey haired classmate, Reiko Yanagi.

-(o)-

Ghost: My grandfather just told me that you got released from the hospital. How are you doing?

Rabbit: I'm fine. Thanks for asking. How are you?

Ghost: I'm good.

Ghost: Sorry I didn't come visit you. My parents have me on lockdown because of what happened.

Rabbits: It's fine. I was actually going to let everyone know that I was safe in the group chat.

Ghost: Good.

Rabbit: It's pretty cool that your grandfather is a famous doctor.

Ghost: I guess

Rabbit: So is there something that you needed?

Ghost: No. I just thought that it would be a good idea to see how you were doing.

Rabbit: I appreciate it. And I'm really sorry for what happened back at the camp. I really shouldn't have put you and the others in that position.

Ghost: Don't worry about it. It's not like you really had a lot of options.

Rabbit: Good point.

Ghost: I'm just glad that you and everyone else are doing well.

Rabbit: Same

Ghost: Well, sorry for bothering you and have a good rest of your day. I'll see you around.

Rabbit: You too

* * *

**Author's Notes: Really not a whole lot to say about this update. We're pretty much starting the transition into "Act II" of this story so it seemed like a good bridge chapter.**

**1\. I am in no way an expert on biology, but that whole hospital scene was just my way of having Midoriya and Fubuki finally talk. I figured that making her his official "big sister" was a good direction for their relationship. Also, since we don't know how AfO's quirk works this was my way of rationalizing it. Someone suggested the idea to me a while back and it seemed like a good one.**

**2\. I have no clue how I'm going to get Tokage or Yanagi to learn the truth about Midoriya and his past. That's honestly the one part of the story I'm still having trouble with. But I do want the two of them to learn about it eventually. If you guys have any ideas on how to make that happen, I'm all ears.**

**As always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.**


	34. Awakening

"I'll be honest Midoriya-san, I'm glad that you're still going to allow your son to attend U.A.." Kan said to Inko.

Currently, Midoriya, Inko, Kan and Kayama were all sitting in the living room of the Midoriya household. And all of them were discussing the boy's future when it came to school. A couple of weeks had passed since the events of Kamino Ward and it was announced that U.A. was going to be switching over to a boarding school format. The reason behind this was so that the students could be better protected.

"Yes, well...to be perfectly frank, I still have my reservations about all of this. If it wasn't for my son and ex-husband, I would've already started looking into other hero schools for him to go to." The green haired woman responded.

"I understand your concerns. Any parent in your position would feel the same way. But you have my personal guarantee that Midoriya, along with the rest of the students, will be properly taken care of." Kayama smiled. It was weird for Midoriya to see the woman in a professional looking grey pantsuit. Which was a far cry from her usual "NSFW" attire.

Truth be told, it did take a fair bit of convincing on Midoriya and Hisashi's part to get Inko to agree to this. Along with the parent's prior talk to Nezu during their recent hospital visit.

The green haired woman wasn't going to stifle her son's dream of becoming a hero and have him switch to a regular high school. Especially after everything that he went through just to get to this point. But the fact that U.A. had allowed two villain attacks on the school was a major concern. If Inko wasn't so sure that her son could defend himself against these threats, she would've already had him submit his application to Shiketsu.

"There's also the matter of your agreement with Principal Nezu." Kan interjected. "I myself am not too clear on the details, but I have a rough idea of what's going on."

Midoriya nervously shifted in his seat after hearing those words. Especially since he knew what the topic of this conversation was going to be.

"Your son is scheduled for one counseling session a week with Hound Dog. Only myself, Kayama, Principal Nezu and Recovery Girl know about this. We also took the liberty of having them take place after class on Thursdays. School clubs are closed those days and students aren't allowed to use the training facilities. So privacy won't be an issue." The blood themed hero continued.

"That's perfectly acceptable." Inko nodded.

"And your son will be allowed to come home on the weekends after getting approval from his teachers. Which works out perfectly since you already live pretty close to campus." Kayama added on.

"Good."

"It's settled then! Aside from that, there's nothing else that we need to discuss."

"We'll be taking our leave now, if you don't mind. We still have a few houses that we need to visit." Kan said the two of them as he stood up from his seat on the couch. Giving them a low bow.

"Yes, well thank you for dropping by. I hope the two of you have an easy rest of your day." Inko replied.

"Thank you."

"We'll be seeing you next week, Midoriya!" Kayama gave one final wave to the boy.

"Right."

Once the two teachers finally left the apartment, Midoriya and Inko went about their day as usual. While the woman was preparing dinner for the two of them, the boy sat in the living room to catch up on the local news. Things hadn't been easy over the last few days and Inko had a sneaking suspicion that they weren't going to get better any time soon.

With everything that happened, the woman found it increasingly difficult to interact with her son. Their relationship had deteriorated ever since that time he ran away from home. And now she was left wondering what she could do to make things better. Which was already a tall enough order as it is.

Inko couldn't help but think back to how things used to be. Only now, her pleasant memories of watching her child grow up were replaced with the knowledge that he had been keeping all of his hardships a secret in an attempt to not make her worry. If she had to describe the feeling, it was guilt. Guilt she had felt for not noticing how bad things had been for her son a lot sooner. Guilt for not doing more to make him feel loved. She did her best to make sure that he was happy. But apparently that just wasn't enough. The only bright side to all of this was the fact that he now had a quirk and actual friends. Which meant that the days of him being tortured for being different were long gone.

"Izuku…" She called out to him.

"Yes?"

"I just want to let you know that I'm proud of you, sweetie. I know things haven't been great for you, but I'm glad to see that you're doing a lot better."

"Thanks." He said, albeit a bit awkwardly. "I'm glad too."

"Now that you're going to be living at U.A. with all of your friends, I hope that you can make time to come see me. It's going to be kind of lonely without having you around."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure to drop by whenever I get the chance."

"Good." The woman smiled. "You can even bring that girlfriend of yours too. I don't think we got off on the right foot last time. But I can tell that she's been a positive influence on you."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Alright." Was all that the woman said before returning to the food. Things may have been rough right now. But Inko was determined to get their relationship back on track.

* * *

_~Saitama Prefecture~_

The near perfect summertime weather was a stark contrast to how Tokage was feeling right about now. To be frank, today was the one day out of the year that she disliked the most. Mainly because of the metaphorical cloud that seemed to linger over her family's heads around this time. Normally, the girl would spend her time away from class bugging Tetsutetsu or lounging about in her house. But today was different.

As she placed a small bouquet of flowers down at the gravestone used to mark the memorial of her late mother, the girl couldn't help but feel a bit awkward about doing this yet again. It was hard to mourn the passing of someone that you didn't know. Even if that person was the one who gave birth to you. But Tokage still made the effort to come out here to pay her respects. Especially since it was the anniversary of the day that she died.

This year was one of the rare occasions that she was by herself during this ritual. Her father had already stopped by on his way into work, Kayama was going to make the journey later on today and her sister was still in school. So she wouldn't be able to make the trip at all.

She wasn't complaining though. Tokage actually preferred doing it this way. And as much as she hated to admit it, her dad throwing himself into his work was his way of coping with the loss. It probably wasn't the healthiest way to go about things, but she really had no right to judge him for it. Once she was done giving a silent prayer, the green haired girl left the cemetery to continue going about her day.

However, what Tokage failed to notice was the person about three dozen meters behind a tree on the other end of the pathway leading up to the gravesite.

'_Phew...I'm glad she didn't see me.'_ Madoka Ozehana breathed out a sigh of relief as she watched the girl walk off into the distance. She had arrived at the cemetery only a few minutes ago and made sure to stay out of the green haired girl's sight until she left.

As conflicted as she was about the entire thing, Ozehana decided that it was best to avoid crossing paths with Tokage right now. Mainly because she wouldn't be able to handle the possible inquiry that would come from her even being there in the first place.

Ever since first meeting her during the internships, Ozehana felt weird being around Tokage. That dark green hair and those sharpened teeth were constant reminders of that day during her childhood when she was rescued from a burning building by a firefighter. Only for that same woman to meet an untimely end just to keep her safe.

Part of her wanted to tell the girl the truth. But she couldn't just come out and tell her that she was the reason why Tokage was forced to grow up without her mother. She honestly didn't know if she should even bring up the topic at all. So for the time being, Ozehana chose to keep that secret to herself. Hoping that one day she'll be able to work up the courage to apologize to the girl for causing her and her family so much pain.

* * *

_~Class 1-B Group Chat~_

Ball: So is anyone NOT moving into the dorms?

Boxing Glove: It got kind of dodgy there for a second but my parents agreed to it.

Cross: Yes, my mother was a bit reluctant as well. But Kan-sensei was very convincing.

Cross: Although I am surprised that Midnight-sensei wasn't her usual self.

Welding Torch: You got Midnight-sensei? Kan-sensei and Present Mic were the ones who came to my house.

Skeleton: My parents were actually on board with it from the start.

Chameleon: Does anyone know if we'll get to pick our own rooms?

Fist: Why?

Chameleon: Because I prefer to not have to deal with Midoriya and Tokage's shenanigans if at all possible.

T-Rex: Oh no...Monoma's going to be living in the dorms too? Well...there goes my good mood.

Chameleon: Is that the best comeback that you could put together? I'm disappointed.

T-Rex: If you wanted a comeback, you could try wiping some off your mom's face.

Cross: Setsuna!

Skeleton: OOOOHHHH!

Knife: OOHHHH SHIT!

Welding Torch: OOOOOOHHHHHH!

Dumbbell: Shots fired!

Ball: FATALITY!

Beyblade: Damn…

Chameleon: Well played.

T-Rex: Thank you! I'll be here all week!

Mushroom: That escalated quickly.

Gluestick: Seriously.

Lion: In response to the earlier inquiry, I believe that we will be able to select our own rooms once we make our return.

Ball: Thank God. That means I won't have to deal with hearing Tetsutetsu snore every night.

Skeleton: Lucky you.

Dumbbell: Screw you!

Fist: Well at least everyone seems to be in good spirits.

Ghost: This is going to be a disaster….

Comic Book: Agreed.

Cross: May God help us all.

T-Rex: We should try looking on the bright side.

Mushroom: What bright side?

T-Rex: The hell if I know. I'm just glad that I'll get to annoy Monoma a lot more efficiently now.

Dumbbell: And she'll be able to cozy up with Midoriya every night.

T-Rex: That too!

Rabbit: This is so embarrassing….

Fist: I'll be sure to ask Kan-sensei about enforcing a curfew.

Apple: We're gonna have so much fun!

* * *

Before they knew it, moving day quickly arrived for the first year students of U.A.

As expected, packing up their belongings and saying goodbye to the families was a bit rough. But despite the fact that they would have to start attending class again in a couple of weeks. The would-be-heroes were all excited to finally get back to training.

Getting settled into the new dorms was actually much easier than the students had originally thought. And like they were told, Kan gave them all permission to pick out their own rooms. For Midoriya, the boy ended up getting the last room on the second floor. And on his hall were Tetsutetsu, Honenuki and Awase. As for Tokage, the girl was able to score the first room on the third floor. Seeing as there were only seven of them, the girls had a lot more options when it came to their selection.

For most of Class 1-B, everyone had their stuff unpacked and set up exactly to their liking within a few hours. The only people who were still getting their things in order were Komori, Monoma, Kuroiro and Bondo. As for the rest of them, everyone except for Midoriya, Yanagi and Kodai were lounging around in the common area.

"Man, I still can't believe how nice this place is." Honenuki commented while looking around the kitchen with Shoda.

"Seriously, it's like one big ass mansion!" Awase added.

"We definitely need to throw a party or something to break the place in." Tokage suggested from her spot in between Kendou and Tetsutetsu on the sofa.

"We've only been here a few hours and you already want to trash the place?" The orange haired teen joked.

The group of students proceeded to engage in random conversation for the next half-hour or so. And Tokage was starting to wonder why Midoriya hadn't come down to join them yet. The boy said that he didn't have a lot of stuff, so it wasn't like he was still unpacking his boxes. In fact, with his quirk he should've been the first one finished getting settled in.

Luckily, the girl didn't have to wait any longer before the green haired teen came walking out of the elevator. He was wearing a simple pair of red gym shorts and a black t-shirt that actually didn't have some ironic wording written on the front of it.

"Hey, what took you so long?!" Tokage asked as he made his way over to an open seat.

"I was on the phone with my dad." He replied.

"Oh yeah, your dad lives in the U.S., right? I remember you mentioning that a while ago." Tetsutetsu inquired, only for Tsunotori to immediately make her presence known.

"_Wait, really? You never told me that!"_ The horned teen said in her native tongue.

"_Yeah, he lives in Texas."_

"_Get the fuck out of here! I'm from Texas. Why didn't you tell me that sooner?!"_

"_I-I guess it just never came up."_ The boy awkwardly rubbed the back of his.

"You _have_ to let me check out your room later." Tokage suddenly suggested with a devious smirk. "I didn't get to see it the last time I was at your place and I'm dying to know what you're hiding in there."

A slight blush appeared on the boy's face. Of course, he didn't have anything that could even remotely be considered embarrassing. Now that he sold all of his old All Might junk, he actually didn't have a lot of stuff in his room at all. Just when the boy was about to respond, the main door suddenly flew open. Everyone immediately turned their heads towards the entrance and were met with a sea of sky blue hair.

Casually floating above the ground was none other than Nejire Hadou. The third year girl was wearing a pair of black shorts and a teal tank-top that was doing its absolute best to hold her well endowed chest in place.

'_Boobs!'_ Tsuburaba's eyes nearly popped out of his head at the sight of the girl.

Hadou's eyes scanned around the area for a moment before locking onto Midoriya. Once she got sight of him, the girl's face shifted to a bubbly smile and Midoriya felt a slight chill go down his spine.

"Kohai!"

"H-Hadou-senpai! What a-are you doing here?"

"Looking for you!" The girl responded before flying over to him and grabbing by the shoulders to visually inspect him."I heard about what happened back at the training camp! Are you okay? Did you get hurt? How long were you held hostage? Did those villains force you to do anything?"

This mild interrogation went on for a few more seconds before the blunette halted her inquiry and gave the boy a serious look.

"Come with me, I need you! Hey look, you're already in workout clothes. That makes this even better!"

"What?"

"Uh...what's going on here?" Tokage arched her eyebrow at the girl who was apparently trying to whisk her boyfriend away to go on some type of adventure. She didn't know a lot about Hadou other than her overly curious personality while also being considered one of the strongest kids in school. But she definitely had some questions about what she was doing.

"Oh hey, you're girlfriend's here too. Don't worry Tokage-chan, I only need him for about an hour. I promise not to tire him out too much!"

"Okay…?"

"Wait, w-wha- where are you trying to t-take me?" A now confused Midoriya asked as the girl began pulling him towards the door.

"No time, I'll explain on the way. Let's go!" Was the last thing Hadou said before dragging the boy out of the building in a dazzling display of yellow energy. Leaving everyone completely bewildered about what just happened.

"Is he going to be okay?" Honenuki asked.

"Who knows?" Tokage shrugged. Although she was definitely curious about what that was all about. She had feeling that it wasn't going to be nearly as entertaining as she hoped. So the girl decided to just ask him about it later.

Seeing as there probably wasn't anything to worry about, the rest of the 1-B students continued on with their conversation. Only for the door to once again randomly fly open. This time however, instead of a flying girl with blue hair. It was one with pink dreadlocks and strange goggles atop her head.

'_Slightly smaller boobs!'_ Tsuburaba nearly choked on his soda at the sight of the girl.

"Where's Casper and Broccoli Boy? They're in this class, right?!" The unidentified teen inquired.

"Who?" Now it was Kendou's turn to figure out what was going on.

"The two with telekinetic quirks."

"You mean Midoriya and Yanagi?" Tetsutetsu looked at her.

"Yeah! I have some new _babies_ for them and we need to do a test run before they can get approved."

'_Babies?'_ Everyone internally questioned. Okay, who the hell was this girl and why did it sound like she had a few screws loose?

"Oh, you must be Hatsume-san." Shiozaki suddenly announced. "Midoriya-kun just uh...left. But Reiko is in her room. She's on the fourth floor."

"Thanks!" That statement was enough for Hatsume to immediately bolt down the hall and into the elevator before anyone could stop her.

Thirty seconds later Hatsume returned with Yanagi in tow, dragging her by the shoulders. For the first time ever, the students of 1-B could see a look of absolute confusion plastered on the grey haired girl's face?

"Hatsume-san, what are you doing?!"

"No time to talk. The two of us have a lot to do!" Was her reply before pausing at the door and looking back at the rest of the class. "Oh yeah! If any of you see Broccoli Boy, tell him that I made a new helmet for him that needs to be tested. Also, there's some machinery that I need him to move for me."

In the blink of an eye the two students vanished out the front door, leaving everyone absolutely stunned. Not even six hours into their first day in the new dorms and wacky stuff was already starting to happen.

"Okay! Are any more cute girls with huge tits going to come through that door to kidnap another one of our classmates? Because if that's the case, then I wanna be next!" Awase yelled in a joking tone.

***Slap!*** The sound of one of Shiozaki's vines colliding with the '_weld'_ quirk user's cheek echoed throughout the common area.

"Ow! Shiozaki, what the hell?"

"You shouldn't say such vile things!" The now blushing vine haired teen chastised him before walking towards the elevator.

* * *

Barely a few minutes later, Midoriya found himself standing outside of Gym Gamma in the middle of P.E. grounds along with Hadou.

"U-uh, Hadou-senpai...what are we doing here?"

"Training!" The bubby teen answered him with a smile on her face. "I got done unpacking my stuff early and needed a way to pass the time. And then I thought: "Oh hey, why don't I go out and get some practice in since I have all this time on my hands?" But everyone in my class was busy. And that's when the idea to come get you popped into my head. You're the perfect person to help me out!"

"Okay…" Midoriya gave the girl a confused look. Disregarding the fact that he was just kidnapped without any warning, the boy was genuinely curious about what kind of training she had in mind.

Evidently, he would soon get his answer when a girl with reddish hair and multiple piercings in her ears came from inside of the gym. She was carrying a few large plastic rings in her hands and looked pretty tired.

"Oh Nejire, you're back. And you actually brought the flying kid with you." The girl then said as she made her approach. "How's it going, I'm Yuyu Haya. And for the record, I tried to tell Nejire not to bother you."

"Hello." Midoriya gave the teen a quick bow.

"Alright! Now that we're all here we can finally get started. This is going to be so much fun, don't you think? With kohai here, this will go a lot smoother than usual. Don't you think Yu-chan?"

"Yeah, I guess so." The girl shrugged.

"So...what are we doing exactly?"

"Weren't you paying attention on the way over?" Hadou pouted at him while folding her arms. Completely forgetting that she never once mentioned anything about the actual training on the journey over to the P.E. grounds. Instead, the girl just rambled on about how cool the new dorms were and how awesome it was to live with her friends. "You're going to help me with my aerial maneuvering. Pretty cool, right?!"

"Is that what the hoops are for?" Midoriya turned his attention over the plastic hoops that Haya was holding.

"That's exactly right! Listen to this! Are you listening? You're gonna levitate these hoops and move them around while I try and fly through them. Usually I just have Tamaki-kun or someone else in my class do this for me, but they're all still busy. And there's no one better to help me on such short notice than you!"

"Alright, this seems easy enough." Midoriya nodded. Since he was already here, he might as well help the girl out with her training. Plus, this would be the perfect chance for him to see her quirk in action and add some new information into his notebook. At the very least, it sounded like he didn't have to do much aside from moving the hoops around.

"Yay!" The blunette shot into the air with a stream of yellow energy at her feet.

Without wasting anymore time, the three students began their impromptu training session. While Hadou was moving through the air and doing her best to maneuver through the hoops, Haya decided to strike up a conversation with him.

"Sorry for dragging you into this. I tried to tell Nejire to leave you alone."

"It's fine, Haya-senpai. I don't mind." He waved off. "So are you in the hero course too?"

"No, I'm in the business course."

"Oh, so how do you know Hadou-senpai?"

"She's my girlfriend."

"Oh...s-sorry, I didn't know." The boy apologized for some reason.

"Don't worry about it." The red haired teen quickly dismissed any thought of her being upset. "Since we're on the subject, I hear that you're dating that green haired girl with the dismemberment quirk."

"Y-yeah." Midoriya blushed. Was word about the two of them spreading around that fast? Actually...no. Now that he thought about it, he never did tell Hadou that he and Tokage _weren't_ dating. Which is kind of a moot point now since they actually were.

"Cool. Fair warning, at some point Nejire is probably going to ask you to go on a double-date. She's been wanting to do one for a while now. And since she still has it in her mind that she can convince you to join her at Ryukyu's Agency, I'd start getting prepared for it."

As he took a second to absorb those words, Midoriya could think of five reasons both for _and _against something like that. Although it didn't sound too bad, he could already imagine what an outing with both Tokage and Hadou would end up like.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Kohai, pay attention!" Said Hadou as the girl continued flying around the air.

"Oh, right. Sorry!"

* * *

It was about an hour later when Midoriya finally returned to the dorms once the training session with Hadou was over with.

After showering and grabbing a snack, the green haired boy was laying on his bed while jotting down notes in his **Hero Analysis for the Future No. 15**. He learned a great deal about the blue haired girl's quirk and was looking forward to studying it a bit more. Actually, now that he was going to be living with his classmates this was the perfect opportunity for him to learn more about all of their quirks. Which was good because he had a particular interest in how exactly Monoma and Kuroiro's powers worked.

Midoriya was brought out of his writings when a knock on the door caught his attention. Since he already knew who it was, the boy was quick to get up from his bed and answer it. Once he opened the door he was greeted with the smiling face of Tokage. The girl was dressed in her usual casual attire, however she was also holding a small box that was covered in red wrapping paper.

"Hey, what's that?" He asked while pointing to the item in question.

"Rin from 1-A dropped by earlier to give this to you. Apparently it's a thank you present for saving him from getting his head split open." Tokage answered.

"Oh." Midoriya nodded.

"So...are you gonna let me in~?" The girl asked sarcastically.

The boy quickly nodded and allowed her to enter the room. After placing the small gift down on the desk, Tokage was finally able to see what her boyfriend's room was like. And to say that she was underwhelmed would be putting it mildly. Not only was the room completely devoid of any decorations. It had the same black and green color theme on pretty much everything from the bedspread to the curtains. It was clear that Midoriya's "Joe Smoe" personna didn't just apply to his sense of fashion.

"We really need to get you some more decorations." The girl joked while patting him on the shoulder.

"Y-yeah." The boy blushed. Only now realizing that he just let a girl into his bedroom of all places. The two may have already gone passed hand holding and kissing. But this felt like a much bigger step than it should have been.

"You should come by and see my room later. I managed to find space for all of my dino-decorations. Even the old posters."

"I guess we can do that later."

"So, how have you been? We haven't had the chance to talk that much today."

"I'm doing good. How about you?"

"No complaints so far." Tokage shrugged. "I'm just glad that things can finally get back to normal. I'm actually looking forward to sitting through one of Cementoss-sensei's lectures."

"Can't argue with you there." The boy laughed. He certainly agreed though, some normalcy was definitely what he needed in his life right now. Hopefully returning to a regular schedule and training would be enough to keep his mind occupied.

The young couple continued talking for the next thirty minutes or so. Tokage was glad to see that Midoriya was doing well, especially after all the craziness that he had to go through. Yet it was clear to her that there was something on his mind.

Out of respect, she never bothered asking about what exactly happened to him during his time with the villains. However, it was obvious that something major occured. She couldn't quite put it into words. But it was like he was carrying around some extra weight on his shoulders.

Deciding that it was better to just give him some time and not reopen fresh wounds, Tokage put those thoughts to the back of her mind for now. Whatever happened to him, she was sure that he'd open about it eventually. And if Kayama's advice to her was any good, it would only be a matter of time.

"Hey, do you have any plans for the rest of the afternoon?" The girl asked completely out of the blue.

"No, why?"

Before he even had a chance to think, Tokage wrapped her arms around Midoirya's neck and threw the boy onto the bed. Now that she had him where she wanted, the girl quickly mounted herself on top of him. "I think we should pick up where we left off a couple of weeks ago. Don't you agree?"

"What?" Midoriya glanced up at her. The heat was rapidly rising in his head and their current position wasn't doing him any favors when it came to calming himself down. "A-are you sure?"

"Don't worry, we won't have another mishap like last time." She smiled. Midoriya then watched as the girl used her quirk to detach the sharp ends of her teeth. She let them float around for a bit before placing them on the desk across the room. Leaving her with a set of perfectly normal looking teeth.

'_That's actually really smart.'_ He thought to himself. It still amazed him how refined Tokage's quirk could be at times.

"My sister told me about that little life-hack." The girl told him before continuing. "Now...where were we?"

All Midoriya could do was resign himself to his fate and get ready for what was coming next. It's not like he wasn't expecting this. Quite the opposite actually. But he thought that the girl would at least wait a day before taking advantage of their new living situation.

"We got about forty-five minutes before dinner. I think that's plenty of time for us to get some more _practice_ in."

"Just promise to go easy on me." He said with a wobbly smile.

"Not...a...chance~." She gave him one last devious smile before crashing her lips into his.

* * *

Later that night, Midoriya was sleeping comfortably in his new bed. That is until the boy's eyes suddenly flew open and he launched himself from underneath the sheets. He looked around the room for a moment before turning his attention to his hands. Twisting and turning them repeatedly in front of his face while flexing his fingers. The boy's confused expression quickly shifted to a wry grin and a hushed laugh echoed throughout the room.

"Well...I'll be damned." Midoriya said. Except something was different. This wasn't his usual tone of voice. It was significantly more brattish and haughty. "So...this is what it's like being in the body of a teenage boy? How gross."

He continued stretching out his limbs before finally deciding to stand up from his bed. Taking a moment to walk and jump around for a bit before letting out a relieved sigh. "My connection to this body is still shaky. I guess the only time I'm able to move around like this is when that brat is asleep. Or this is just some wacky coincidence. No matter…."

Midoriya quickly turned his attention to the green backpack resting on the floor next to his desk. He then activated his quirk and started levitating the object, only for it to immediately fall back to the ground. "That was way harder than it should've been. I guess I'm not able to fully use my quirk when I'm like this. What a fucking pain."

This continued on for a good five minutes before Midoriya stopped and returned to looking at his hands. '_I don't know what the hell is going on. But I guess that part of my consciousness was somehow able to transfer along with my quirk. This shit is weird. I'm tempted to just go out and fly around for a bit, but I can already tell that I don't have a strong enough connection with my quirk to do that. And I have no clue how long I'll be able to keep this up.'_

With that out of the way, the boy decided to wander around the room for a bit before sitting down at his computer desk and opening up the laptop. It was then that he spotted the multitude of notebooks neatly stacked together right next to him. With nothing better to do, he reached for them and took hold of the one titled: **Quirk Analysis: Izuku Midoriya.**

Midoriya flipped through the pages for a short time before a slight grin made its way onto his face. "I'll have to hand it to the little nerd, he has wonderful observation skills. It took me a while to figure out some of this stuff. He's got a firm grasp on how to use my powers. But it looks like he still hasn't figured out "_pyscho-waves"_ yet."

The boy then grabbed a nearby pen and flipped over to a blank page, wasting no time in jotting down a few notes. '_I'll cut him some slack this time since he's still new at this. But that idot needs to stop fucking around. But hey, I don't see why I can't throw him a bone every now and then.'_

In the dark, Midoriya's hand continued to move as the new entry of his notebook was transcribed onto the page. The only thing that could be seen on the paper were the bold letters written at the top.

"**Palace of Inertia"**

* * *

**A/N: Yet another bridge chapter, but one that actually moves the plot along. I wanted to hurry up and get to everyone moving into the dorms. So I had to omit a few things that weren't really important to the story. I already plan on skimming over the "License Exam Arc", but all the major events will still be there.**

**1\. Just to let you guys know, "Tatsumaki" won't be making that many appearances. But she'll have a few major interactions that I think you guys will enjoy. I don't want to spoil too much...but let's just say that "Midoriya" won't be present for a certain conversation with a certain blonde haired student that will be happening pretty soon. **

**2\. Like I said before, this version of Midoriya is going to be a rescue hero. So it's natural that he'll need some more "rescue" oriented moves. Everyone in 1-B is going to get some type of power-boost. But Midoriya's aren't going to be combat oriented. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.**


	35. Liscence Training

The early morning wakeup was not very enjoyable for Izuku Midoriya. For some unknown reason, the boy felt considerably more tired than usual. It had been a few days since moving into the new dorms and this was the second time that he found himself exhausted for no good reason. Even factoring in the time that he spent hanging out with Tokage and his classmates, he had been getting more than a good amount of sleep. So the reason behind this was a complete mystery to him.

As the boy made his way out of the locker room and over the training facility, he ended up running into his grey haired classmate, Reiko Yanagi.

"Hello, Reiko-san." The boy greeted with a friendly wave while taking notice of her new and improved hero costume. He remembered her telling him that Hatsume ended up going overboard with the new additions to her outfit. And from the looks of it, the pink haired inventor certainly spared no expense.

The general design was the same. She still had her white kimono with the furred collar. But in addition to what looked to be a new hover-disc, she was also sporting a new belt with some strange attachments on it.

"Hey." The stoic teen greeted him back in a slightly softer tone than usual. "How are you?"

"A bit tired, but nothing serious."

"Are you sure?" She then asked.

"Huh?"

"Just asking."

"Is something wrong?"

"No...just wanted to make sure." She replied. "You've just been kind of _off_ lately."

"You think so?"

"Yeah…" Yanagi nodded before giving him a slightly concerned look. "I know we haven't talked that much since coming back to school. But if you need someone to talk to, I'm here. You did go through a rather traumatic experience after all."

"You don't need to worry about me. I'm fine, I promise." Midoriya reassured her.

"Alright." She conceded before turning her attention to the object that he was holding under his arm. "Is that the new helmet that Hatsume-san made for you?"

"Yeah." The boy said as he held it out in front of her.

True to her word, Hatsume took the liberty of making an entirely new mask for the green haired boy. The overall design was still the same, but there were still some very obvious alterations. What was previously two separate eye-holes were now converted into a single green visor surrounded by three metallic bands. Along with this was a new respirator attachment that apparently helped filter out smoke and gas.

"I haven't tried it on yet, but it still looks pretty cool." He continued. "What does that new belt of yours do?"

"Honestly, it would be easier to show you rather than explaining." She replied.

"Oh, alright then."

With that, the telekinetic duo continued making their way over to the training facility.

* * *

"All right students, listen up!" Kan announced to the students of 1-B. "As you know, your primary focus this summer is to obtain your provisional hero licenses. I don't need to tell all of you that you need to take this seriously."

Currently, the students along with Kan, Midnight, Cementoss, Ectoplasm and Thirteen were standing in Gym Gamma. All dressed in their hero costumes. It was still pretty early for class to be in session. But no one was about to complain seeing as everyone was excited to finally get back to training.

"A hero license means that you will be responsible for human lives. You will be able to act on your own initiative or assist pros in times of emergencies."

"The exam itself is very difficult. Usually only fifty percent of applicants pass the tests required to obtain this permit in any given year." Thirteen followed up.

"Damn, it's that hard for just a provisional license?" Awase commented.

"Your schedule for the next two weeks will primarily focus on you creating _ultimate moves_ for you to use come exam day." Kan continued.

"Ultimate moves?" A few of the students echoed.

"Yes, ultimate moves are skills that you develop to ensure victory against an opponent." Ectoplasm was the first to explain, "It's an action that is typically unique to your identity that no other person can copy. Although some people do take inspiration from others."

"Take Midoriya for example." Midnight directed everyone's attention towards the green haired boy, striking a very provocative pose in the process. "His "Hellstorm" is a technique that's considered to be the specialty of the Psychic Sisters."

"Kinda like Tokage-chan and her "Scalestorm", right?" Said Shoda, causing the rest of the students nodded in agreement.

"Exactly!"

The students quickly erupted into various sidebar conversations about what kind of new techniques that they would be able to perform. Midoriya himself was curious as to the possibilities of what his classmates would be capable of. It was easy to assume that those with emitter type quirks would need to increase the output of their powers. But people like Tetsutetsu and Kamakiri with transformation quirks would have to think outside of the box.

"Simply put, you must learn to lean into your strengths." Ectoplasm's voice brought Midoriya out of his mental rambling.

"Most pros possess ultimate moves, those who don't are fools." Midnight said.

"For the rest of the afternoon, you all are going to spend your time brainstorming and constructing your techniques. You'll pretty much have free reign to do whatever you'd like and the teachers will be here to assist you." Kan interjected.

"This is gonna be awesome!" Tokage cheered. The green haired girl already had a new move that she's been waiting to test out and now was the perfect time to get started.

* * *

It didn't take long before the students got into the swing of things. While some of the hero course hopefuls were running wild inside of the building, Midoriya, Yanagi, Shiozaki, Fukidashi and Tsunotori were conducting their training outside since their quirks required a lot of space.

"How are things going over here?" Midnight asked Midoriya while making her approach.

"Everything's fine, Midnight-sensei." The green haired boy replied as he took a quick break.

"I'll admit that I'm a bit curious about what kind of technique you're going to create. With your quirk, I'm sure that it's going to be something dazzling."

"Yeah…"

"Is something wrong?" The "R-Rated" heroine tilted her head in confusion.

"Not really, it's just that I'm having a hard time figuring something out." He answered honestly.

It wasn't necessarily a matter of creating a new move. It was more like figuring out how to put it into practice. Midoriya doesn't exactly remember when he did it, but at some point the boy already cooked up a new technique that he wanted to try out. Earlier when he was reading through his quirk notebook he came across a new addition that seemingly came out of nowhere.

"**Palace of Inertia"**, was what it was labelled as at the top of the page. The easiest way to describe it was that it's an "area of effect" move that would allow him to stop movement in a certain area. Although something like that would prove to be incredibly useful in rescue operations. Putting it into practice was an entirely different issue altogether. Especially since it focused so much on manipulating "_psycho-waves"_. He remembered reading about that a long time ago, but why he decided to add that onto the page was mystery to him.

"I see." Midnight nodded. "Why don't you explain to me what you're trying to do? Maybe I can give you some assistance."

After a brief explanation of what he was trying to accomplish, all Midnight did was give him a surprised look. She already knew that the boy had some serious potential. And the fact that he could easily be considered the strongest student amongst the first years aside from Todoroki was a popular opinion. But even she was impressed by what he managed to think up.

"Unfortunately, I don't think I can give you much advice on certain aspects of this. My quirk may be an "area of effect" type as well, but I can't control the direction that my gas goes when I activate it. The most I can do is limit the range."

"Oh, alright then." Midoriya said.

"But what I can tell you is that you shouldn't try to go too big too fast. Start off by trying to work in a ten meter radius and focus on manipulating things in that area individually. With what you told me, that should be the first step. In fact...Yanagi seems to be particularly good at that." The black haired woman suggested.

"That makes sense."

"Still, I'm certainly impressed by what you came up with. It could easily be a game changer in any situation. Oh my, the youth of today are just so fascinating~." She cooed.

"Y-yeah, I guess you're right." He awkwardly chuckled.

"Worry not Midoriya! A strapping young man such as yourself will surely master this move in no time. You must remember to let those youthful juices of yours flow from every hole in your body! Only then will you taste the thick and creamy nectar of success!" Midnight shouted with a slight bit of drool on her lips.

'_Ew…'_ The boy internally cringed at the blatant innuendo in the woman's words. To be frank, Midoriya did sometimes wonder how his girlfriend's aunt was allowed to teach at a school full of teenagers.

"In the meantime, I suggest that you and Yanagi work together for now. That would be most beneficial to your progress."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." He agreed.

"Oh and by the way…" Midnight grinned before wrapping her arm around his shoulder and leaning in close. "_I snuck some condoms into Setsuna's room this morning. I'm on dorm duty for the rest of the week. So I guarantee that the two of you won't have any interruptions if you feel the need to...blow off some steam tonight after training." _She whispered in a sultry tone, which was more than enough to make the boy blush uncontrollably.

Midoriya didn't even get a chance to respond before the "R-Rated" heroine skipped off in the opposite direction to go offer some wisdom to Shiozaki. Leaving the boy feeling slightly violated at her words.

* * *

After his...interesting conversation with his teacher, Midoriya made his way over to Yanagi. The grey haired girl was diligently trying to perfect her own version of the "Hellstorm". The two had talked about him showing her how to do it a few times before. But now that they had the opportunity, this was the perfect time for her to practice it.

"How's it going?" Midoriya asked.

"Fine." The girl stoically replied before releasing her quirk. "It's not as hard as I thought. But focusing on keeping the shape of it is difficult."

"Yeah, I'm still having that problem too."

"So what's up?"

"Nothing, I just needed some advice."

"About what?" The girl quirk an eyebrow at him. She still found it a bit odd how Midoriya would always ask her for advice when it came to their quirks since he was more powerful than her. But she was used to it by now.

"What do you do to train your fine control? The new move I'm trying out is looking to be a bit more than I can handle." He asked.

"To be honest, I don't really train that part of my quirk. I mostly focus on weight and distance. My fine control is something that just comes naturally."

"I see." The boy nodded. He really should've expected something like that. When it came to quirk control, Yanagi was far ahead of him. He racked his brain for another moment before asking a question that she might know the answer too. "Oh yeah, have you ever heard of "_psycho-waves"_ before?"

"Yeah." She replied. "My grandfather mentioned it a few times but I never really understood it. It's something specific to telekinetic quirks. They're like a force that your body emits that allows you to manipulate objects. But how they function is supposed to be unique to the user."

'_That makes sense.'_ He thought to himself. It would certainly explain why their quirks functioned so differently. Ever since his talk with Monoma back at the camp, Midoriya finally started to notice the differences in their powers. Yanagi's range was limited, but inside that range it was like she had complete control of what she was using. While on the flipside, his range was greater while requiring more focus on a specific target.

"You'd be better off asking Blizzard about it. She seems more knowledgeable about that stuff than me."

"Yeah, I think you're right." He agreed. "Oh yeah, that reminds me! What does that new belt of yours do?"

Yanagi looked down at her waist for a moment before undoing one of the straps on her new support item. Without saying a word, Midoriya watched as the girl activated her quirk and began levitating multiple metallic discs that emerged from the pouches. Each one was the size of his fist, but from the looks of it there appeared to be about fifteen of them.

"I've been thinking about something like this ever since my internship with Musha-san. Since my quirk is limited, he thought that it would be a good idea for me to have some weapons on hand that I could easily manipulate. And after telling Hatsume-san, this is what she came up with."

"Whoa, that's amazing!" The boy said with a shocked expression. Having those on hand would mean that she wouldn't have to worry about supplies when it came to battle.

"It's still a prototype, but I think it would work well for me."

"Yeah, I bet."

"Anyways, since you're already here we might as well train together. I still need some help with perfecting my "**Witching Whirlwind**"."

"Yeah, no problem."

* * *

Later that afternoon, the students were finally done with their training session for the day. Midoriya still had a few minutes before Tokage was scheduled to drop by his room, so he thought that it would be a good idea for him to do a quick video chat with Katsuragi to get some advice.

"_Izuku, how's it going?"_ The green haired woman smiled at him from what looked to be her office desk.

"Hey, sorry for calling you out of the blue. Is this a bad time?"

"_Not at all, I actually just finished up for the day. Is something wrong?"_

"No, I was just hoping that I could get some advice on a new move that I'm working on."

"_Oh really?"_ The woman perked up. "_And what exactly is this new technique of yours? It must be pretty difficult if it has you looking to your dear old sister for help."_

"Well, it's called "**Palace of Inertia**"-."

"_Wait, what?!" _The woman suddenly cut him off. "_Did I hear that correctly?"_

"What's wrong?" He gave her a worried expression.

"_Nothing...it's just that...my sister had a move with that exact same name."_

"Really?"

"_Yeah."_ Katsuragi nodded. "_It pretty much let her stop all movement within a certain radius of her body. It was certainly a top-shelf skill if you ask me. She created it right before she died, but never got around to explaining to me how to do it."_

'_Okay, that's definitely weird.'_ Midoriya thought to himself. Not only did the technique have the same name, but apparently it was the same concept as well. "Actually, the skill I'm working on is pretty much the same."

"_Seriously? Well that's one hell of a coincidence, huh?"_

"Yeah…" He said with an awkward laugh.

"_So what did you need help with?"_

"I don't exactly know where to start. But have you ever heard of "_psycho-waves"_?"

"_Of course, it's basically how all psychokinetic quirks work. It's a relatively new discovery, but I do know the basics."_

"Is that so? Well, I'm trying to get some more information on what it is. And I figured online searches would only get me so far."

"_Makes sense."_ The woman nodded. "_Basically, when you activate your quirk, your body emits-"_

Katsuragi was cut off when a knock suddenly came from Midoriya's door. Without really thinking the boy yelled out that door was open. And sure enough, Tokage came walking into the room with her laptop in hand along with a bag of popcorn.

"What's up handsome!" The green haired teen greeted him with a smile. "You ready for movie night?"

"Setsuna, you're early."

"Only by a few minutes." Tokage shot back.

"_Is that Tokage-san?"_ Katsuragi asked in a curious tone.

"Oh hey, is that you Blizzard? Long time no see!" The girl waved at the heroine as she made her approach to the computer desk.

"_Indeed. I trust that you're doing well. I heard what happened back at the training camp."_

"Never felt better!" She replied. "So what's this? I didn't know that Izuku had you on speed dial."

"_Izuku was just asking me for some advice on his new technique."_

Tokage certainly took note of the fact that her and her boyfriend were apparently on a first name basis now. Katsuragi made it no secret that she was looking to recruit Midoriya after graduation. But when exactly did they get so friendly?

"That's cool."

"_I forgot Izuku told me that the U.A. students had moved into the new dorms. I kinda wish that we had that luxury when I was still in school."_

"Oh yeah, it's awesome! Now I get to spend more quality time with the green bean over here." The girl joked while wrapping her arms around the boy's shoulders and leaning forward to get a better look into the camera.

"_I trust that the two of you aren't doing anything irresponsible."_ Katsuragi's tone shifted into one that could be considered suspicious. Almost like she was being protective of the boy.

"W-what?" Midoriya immediately blushed.

"Don't worry." Tokage waved off. "The only thing Izuku's hitting here is the books..._for now_."

"_Good, school is still your top priority. You shouldn't let pleasure get in the way of business after all."_

Hoping to have a little bit of fun with this, Tokage wanted to see if she could push the envelope some more. "Since we have you on the phone, I gotta ask. What's the deal with you and Edgeshot? I've seen some pictures of the two of you on patrol together recently."

"_Nice try, dear. But he's way too old for me."_

"Ah so you're into younger men, huh? Well if that's the case, our classmate Awase totally has the hots for you. I could arrange something...off the record."

"_You certainly have your hands full with this one, don't you?" _Katsuragi turned her gaze back to Midoriya.

"I'm not going to argue with you there." The boy laughed. "Anyways, I guess I'll call you back later."

"_Fine by me."_ She shrugged. "_Have a good day and stay out of trouble."_

"No problem, I'll talk to you later Onee-chan."

"Bye."

Once the video call ended, Midoriya turned his head towards Tokage only to see the girl giving him a devilish grin. It was only then that he realized that he just called the woman his big sister right in front of her. And effortlessly at that.

"Y'know...if Juzo heard you say that, he'd have a field day."

"Yeah…"

"Since when were the two of you so close?"

"I-it's kind of a recent thing."

"I see." She gave a slightly skeptical look. One telling him that he'd better think of a better answer soon to keep her from digging. "Now, I don't know about you but I've been looking forward to this all day."

"Yeah, me too."

The two greenettes quickly moved over to the boy's bed and got ready to start watching the movie. Since they were going to be sharing a laptop, Tokage made it a point to snuggle up as close to him as possible. And in response, Midoriya wrapped his arm around the girl's shoulder which gave her some more room to get comfortable. He still wasn't entirely used to this type of close contact. But he wasn't going to be complaining about it any time soon. Spending some quality time together like this was one of the added benefits of now living in the same building.

"So, you still plan on volunteering over at the orphanage this weekend?"

"Mhmm." He nodded. "I already got permission from Kan-sensei. It was actually a lot easier than what I thought it would be."

"Makes sense. It's not an easy request to deny. I'll ask him tomorrow after training if I can join you. I'm actually looking forward to seeing those kids again."

"I'd like that."

"I'm sure you would." She said before planting a quick peck on his cheek.

Without any further delay, the two finished getting settled in and began watching the movie. It was a recommendation from Tsunotori. From what the girl knew, it was some old era American film about a group of guys who went around fighting ghosts. Luckily, the both of them were fluent enough in English to where they would be able to understand what was going on without subtitles.

-(o)-

"Man, that was actually pretty good." Tokage said while stretching out her arms. She definitely needed to ask Tsunotori for some more recommendations later on.

"I can't believe that special effects used to be that bad." Midoriya responded jokingly. "Then again, it is over three hundred years old."

"Good point."

"So how did training go for you today?" The boy then asked. "I didn't get a chance to see what you were working on since I was outside all day."

"Oh, I cooked up a pretty sweet new move!" The girl gave him her signature confident smirk. "It's called "**Scale Dash"**. Metalhead was helping me work on it today and I already have the basics down."

"I can't wait to see it."

"Oh, you definitely will."

Without any warning, Tokage decided to randomly wrap her arms around the boy's neck and plant a peck on his lips. She was amazed at herself for being able to hold out for this long. But now that the movie was over, she could finally get to the main event.

"Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"You don't have to give me an answer, but I'm just curious. What exactly were you doing in that alley back when we first met?"

Of all the things that Midoriya expected the girl to ask, that certainly wasn't it. Now that he thought about it, he never did explain to her the circumstances about that day. Obviously there were a few things that he wasn't comfortable with telling her right now. But he didn't really see a reason to lie about it as long as he omitted certain details.

"Well...to make a long story short...I ran away from home a couple of weeks before that. I was wandering around for a while and just so happened to end up there."

It was impossible for Tokage to hide the shocked look on her face. She had a feeling that something like that was the case. But hearing him admit it was certainly a surprise.

"I take it that has something to do with why you and your mom aren't so close?"

"That's part of it, yeah."

"Well, considering everything you told me about how you grew up. It's not all that surprising."

"Yeah…" He nodded a bit shyly. "But since we're on the subject, I never did get a chance to thank you for that granola bar that you gave me. That was the first thing that I had eaten in days."

"Just promise to make it up to me on our next date." She smiled at him before continuing her inquiry. "What about after that? You kinda ran off on me before we really had a chance to talk."

"Actually, I ended up running into Unohana-san that night. Him and Kosai-san let me stay at the orphanage for a few days before I finally decided to go back home. And I started volunteering over there to make up for them having to put up with me."

"That was nice of them."

"Yeah."

"I'll be sure to give Brain-Boy my thanks for helping you out. What's he been up to anyway?"

"He's starting college in a few days. He ended up choosing to go to Tokyo University."

"Hey, my sister goes there! I'll tell her to be on the lookout for a nerdy boy with pink eyes. Maybe I can even get the two of them to start dating."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Midoriya said in a joking tone.

"No, but it'll be fun to watch. And it will definitely help her out in the dating department since she's terrible at that."

"I'll make sure to give him a warning."

After a few seconds of laughter, the young couple resumed their previously scheduled activity and went back to watching movies for the rest of the night. Tokage was glad that Midoriya was finally starting to open up to her more. It was a sign that their relationship was moving in the right direction. Naturally, she wanted to know a bit more about what happened to him. But she was more than satisfied for now.

* * *

When their movie night was finally over, Tokage made the short trip back to her room to get some much needed rest. As much as she wanted to spend the night with her boyfriend, she knew that some late night spooning probably wasn't the best idea since they had to get up early tomorrow for training. As soon as the girl opened the door she immediately made her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth and get comfortable. However, she paused at the sight of a box covered in blue gift wrap sitting atop her sink.

'_What's this?'_ She wondered before grabbing the neatly folded note on top of the item and opening it up.

"_Dear Setsuna,_

_Consider this a housewarming gift for moving into the new dorms. Try not to have too much fun. And be sure to properly hydrate and stretch before using them. And if you don't, that's fine too. If you ever run low, I've got a stash in my desk in case your father ever wants to pay me a visit at work. Enjoy!_

_XOXOXO Nemuri"_

"This ought to be good." Tokage said before tearing off the wrapping paper. Only to pause at the not-so-small box of condoms in her hands. A million things quickly ran through her mind in that moment. And none of them were exactly rated PG. But instead of freaking out like a normal teenage girl would, the '_lizard tail splitter' _quirk user simply tucked the box inside the cabinet underneath her sink.

"Well...you can never be too safe nowadays." She smiled before continuing on with her nightly ritual.

* * *

_~Unknown Location~_

In a dark and dingy alleyway somewhere in Japan, a hooded figure wearing all black was making his way over to a small group of similarly dressed individuals.

"Good to have you back, Nitro. I heard that your trip was a success." One of the individuals with a feminine voice said to him in a satisfied tone.

"Of course it was." The person now identified as Nitro replied. "Just be glad that the timing of your little _operation_ coincided with my vacation."

"And we greatly appreciate your assistance. I like the new mask by the way." One of the other individuals said to him. The person was sporting a blacked out mask with two small eye holes that kept his entire head covered.

"So...do you have the goods?"

Instead of responding, Nitro simply removed the backpack from his shoulders and tossed it over to one of the other men. That person took a moment to verify its contents before handing him a similar looking backpack filled with money.

"Excellent." The feminine sounding one smirked. "With this, we'll be able to resume operations in a few days."

"Remember our deal. You make sure to give me a heads up on where you're going to use that and I'll keep the supply coming. I'm gonna be moving pretty soon, but that should be enough for the next month or so."

"No problem."

"Are you sure that you don't want to reconsider our offer? With you, we can do a lot more damage." Another person asked the masked individual.

"I already told you, I'm not interested in becoming a member. The only thing I'm concerned about is cash. So you guys can forget about me joining your little crusade."

"Fine by us."

"If we're all done here, I've gotta get going."

"Where are you heading off to this late? If you don't mind me asking."

"Word on the street is that some Yakuza guys just released a new product that I'm particularly interested in. I wanted to see if it was the real deal or not." Nitro replied in a tone that no one could really describe.

"Well then, good luck to you. And feel free to keep in touch."

"Whatever…" Was all the masked individual said before disappearing into the shadows.

* * *

**A/N: I don't really have a lot to say about this chapter. Just a quick update to see how the students are doing. We'll get to see more of the rest of 1-B next chapter. But I just wanted to focus on our main trio. **

**1\. As sad as this is to say, don't expect any update to this story for the next couple of weeks. Between work and school, things have gotten pretty crazy so I won't have a lot of free time to write the next chapter. (I work at a hospital so you can imagine what my life is like right now)**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review. **

**P.S.: Stay safe out there and remember to wipe down your phones/tablets as often as possible!**


	36. Secrets Revealed

"So you have to see Hound Dog at least once a week?" Reiko Yanagi asked Midoriya in her usually stoic manner.

"Yeah, every week on Thursdays." The boy replied.

At the moment, the two telekinetic students were alone in the kitchen. Both of them propped up against the counter closest to the sink. It was pretty late into the night. And most of the other students had already checked into bed by this point. Yet, the two of them just so happened to run into each other while they were both in the mood for a late night snack.

"So...who else knows about this?" The grey haired teen continued.

"Aside from you, there's Kan-sensei, Kayama-sensei, Recovery Girl and Nezu-san."

"Not Setsuna-chan?"

Midoriya awkwardly rubbed the back of his head for a moment before responding. "To be honest...I-I don't want her to know about this right now. Actually, I was hoping that you wouldn't mind covering for me. For now at least."

"Fine." The girl said with a slight sigh. "I'll help you out. But you're gonna have to tell her at some point. She's going to find out sooner or later."

"Thank you, Reiko-san. I really appreciate it."

"Don't mention it." Yanagi nodded.

* * *

The next day of training was shaping up to be a good one. Over the last few days the students of 1-B were well on their way to perfecting their new ultimate moves. There were a few hiccups and mishaps, which was expected. But overall, the students were progressing quite well.

_"Alright Izuku, you ready?!"_ Tsunotori shouted to the boy from across the field in her native English. Surrounded by ten of her already expended horns.

_"Good to go!"_ Midoriya responded with a thumbs up.

_"Alright!"_ The horned teen flashed him a grin before taking control over five of her horns. Although this was still her limit, she was making great progress on her control over her quirk. And without so much as a word, Tsunotori launched the objects at him at about half of her top speed.

**"Palace of Inertia!"** With barely a second to react, Midoriya activated his quirk and the air around him grew stiff. The moment the horns came within ten meters of his body, they froze mid-air. Despite her best effort, Tsunotori was unable to move them any further. It was almost as if they suddenly became encased in an imaginary block of ice.

After nearly a week of practice, Midoriya was finally able to crack the code on his new ultimate move. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. But something inside of him instinctively knew what to do. Almost as if he had experience doing it before. And now that he had a good idea about the concept of _"psycho-waves"_ thanks to Katsuragi, all he had to do now was work on expanding its area of effect.

"Well, I'd say that was a success." Said Kan as he made his approach towards the students. "It looks like you finally mastered that move of yours, Midoriya."

"Thank you, sir." The green haired teen bowed.

"And Tsunotori, good job on trying to attack him from different directions. If it was anybody but him, you would've definitely knocked them down for the count. Your speed and execution has improved greatly."

"Thanks, sensei!"

As if on cue, the rest of the 1-B students began filing out of the building along with Cementoss and Ectoplasm. Their training time was almost up. And they needed to make space for class 1-A who was due there any second.

"You having fun out here, Izuku?" Tokage wrapped her arm around the boy's shoulder and flashed him a toothy grin.

"Yeah." He nodded. "What about you?"

"I'm great! I've pretty much perfected my ultimate move already. I even gave Ibara here a run for her money."

"Yes, Setsuna's new attack is quite difficult to deal with." The vine haired girl politely agreed. Midoriya still had yet to see the girl's _"Scale Dash"_ in action. But from what she described, it was the perfect combination of misdirection and attack power. He was actually looking forward to seeing it as soon as possible.

"You should've seen Tetsutetsu-kun in there." Honenuki added. "The guy's pretty much a walking tank now."

"You damn right I am!" The 'steel' quirk user announced proudly. "I'm so close to perfecting my new transformation that I can almost taste it!"

"Are you sure that it isn't all that titanium that you've been eating?" Tokage joked. "I still can't believe that it took you this long to figure out that you eat other metals besides iron."

Before anyone else could comment, a scraggly voice suddenly made its presence known. "Are you already finished, Vlad?" Said Aizawa as him and the 1-A students walked up. This was pretty much their first time seeing the other class ever since moving into the dorms. And from the looks of it, everyone seemed to be doing well. And a lot of them had some new additions to their hero costumes.

"Yeah, you guys are all good to go."

"Mhmm." Aizawa simply hummed before instructing his students to go inside the gym. Naturally the wannabe heroes took the time to greet each other and catch up.

"It's nice to see all of you again." Said Yaoyorozu to the group.

"Right back at you." Kendou replied before immediately being cut off.

"Hey 1-A scrubs, did you hear? The licensing exam only has a fifty percent pass rate. That means your entire class could fail!" Nieto Monoma began cackling like a madman.

_'He's certainly lively today'_ Everyone's thoughts echoed. Out of all the students in class 1-B, Monoma was probably the one who made the biggest leap in terms of ability. Which did nothing to satiate his already questionable ego.

"Monoma's observations are correct. There is a possibility that we'll have to come to battle if we partake in the same exam. That appears to be the hand that fate has dealt us." Tokoyami stated from his spot next to Asui and Uraraka. .

"That is why our classes will be in different testing locations." Aizawa added.

"Each school has at most one class in a single location. So you won't be going up against each other." Kan followed up.

"How sad~. We won't be able to face each other directly. You losers won't get the see the superior might of Class 1-B!" Monoma cheered, only to receive a swift chop to the back of the neck from Kendou.

With the pleasantries now out of the way, the 1-A students began making their way into the building with only a few sticking around to mingle for a bit longer. Suddenly and without warning, Midoriya felt something hit him on the shoulder with enough force to make him take a step back. The green haired teen turned his head and his heart almost dropped into his stomach when he found himself locking eyes with Katsuki Bakugou.

Time seemed to freeze as the two remained silent. And Midoriya instantly remembered what happened on the day of the rescue. It was no surprise that Bakugou obviously harbored some hostility towards him. Which wasn't anything out of the usual. But no matter what, Midoriya knew that trying to apologize to the boy for breaking his arms would've been pointless. His eyes briefly drifted down towards the boy's arms and he was glad that Recovery Girl did a good job at healing his injuries.

_"Damn traitor…"_ Was the only thing that Bakugou decided to say in a low tone before walking off into the building. Leaving Midoriya slightly stunned at the pure audacity of such an act.

"Geez, what's his problem?" Tokage asked Midoriya immediately after. Curious about that rather tense interaction.

"W-who knows?" Midoriya shrugged rather unconvincingly.

"Did something happen between you two?" Yanagi interjected.

By the grace of whatever deity was looking out for him, Midoriya didn't even get the chance to try and come up with an answer before a deep voice caught his attention.

"Excuse me...Midoriya-san." The 1-B students all turned their heads to see none other than Fumikage Tokoyami. Class 1-A's resident edge-lord.

"Yes, Tokoyami-san?" He replied in a curious tone.

Without missing a beat, the raven-headed teen bowed in his direction at a nearly perfect ninety degree angle. "I owe you my deepest apologies."

"Huh?"

"For what happened back at the training camp." Tokoyami further clarified. "Had it not been for my error, you would've never been kidnapped by those villains. I deeply regret causing you to get stuck in such an unfavorable situation."

All Midoriya could do was look at the boy with a surprised expression. As did everyone else. This was only his second time talking to him. But from what he could gather, Tokoyami was a good person. It quickly dawned on him that his classmate must've blamed himself for what happened to him back at the camp. And something like that was the last thing Midoriya wanted.

"Please, don't worry about it Tokoyami-san." Midoriya told him. "It wasn't your fault. You don't need to apologize to me for anything."

"I disagree with that declaration. But I assure you, I will find a way to repay you for my folley."

"You don't have to do that. Honestly…" The green haired boy repeated. Even though it was obvious that it was a pointless gesture.

"In any case, I simply decided to let you know what my position is. I apologize for taking up your time." Was the last thing that Tokoyami told him before electing to join the rest of his class. Leaving Midoriya slightly guilty about the boy's feelings.

"Man, that guy practically screams _"Edgelord"_, doesn't he?" Tokage said in a joking manner to try and lighten up the mood a bit. "Y'know Ghosty, the two of you would make a pretty good match."

All Yanagi did was give the girl a dry look before walking off in the direction of the locker room. Obviously not in the mood to entertain Tokage's devious antics at the moment.

"What? I'm just saying what everyone else was thinking!"

"We were not all thinking that…." Tetsutetsu deadpanned.

"Bleh...you people are total squares!" The 'lizard tail splitter' user groaned before the rest of 1-B began making their way over to the locker rooms to get changed and head back to the dorms for some much needed rest and relaxation.

* * *

Late into the night, Tokage found herself waking up due to a bad case of cottonmouth. Normally, the green haired teen would've just hopped right out of bed and drudged all the way over to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. But tonight that probably wasn't such a good idea. Mainly due to the admittedly comfortable mound of flesh that she was laying on top of.

With a slight grin on her face, Tokage turned her head over to the right to take in the pleasant sight of Midoriya peacefully sleeping underneath her. Due to the generous amount of moonlight breaching through her bedroom window, the girl was able to fully appreciate the delicate features on her boyfriend's freckled face. Midoriya may not have been drop dead gorgeous like most supermodels. But he had a certain level of cuteness that she just couldn't get enough of.

After a little bit of convincing, and a quick heads-up to Kayama in case of trouble, the girl was finally able to spend the entire night snuggled up close to her green haired body pillow. Of course the boy was a bit nervous about doing something like this at first. But he was more than willing to give it a shot.

Very gently, the green haired girl slipped out of his grasp around her waist and silently exited the room to get that much needed bottle of water that she was desperately craving at the moment.

After about ten minutes, Tokage returned to her room only to see the boy in the exact same position that she had left him prior to leaving. Except now, she had a full view of everything that he had to offer. Midoriya was surprisingly well built. His well toned arms and thighs were on full display as he laid spread out across the bed. Lightly snoring like a baby kitten.

It was at that moment that Tokage had an absolutely brilliant idea. Although they had been dating for a while, the girl never once got the chance to see him without a shirt on. She already knew that he had a killer set of abs on him based on her not-so-subtle peaking that she had been doing all year. And now was the perfect time for her to...inspect the goods.

_'A little peak won't hurt. I'm sure he wouldn't mind. I am his girlfriend after all.'_ The girl convinced herself before fully committing to what she was about to do.

She silently closed the distance between the two of them and carefully lifted her velociraptor themed comforter from atop his body. Taking a moment to identify her target. Luckily there was enough moonlight present in the room to where she didn't even need to think about turning on her lights or using her cellphone.

A wide and almost feral grin crept onto Tokage's face as she reached over the bed and grabbed the hem of Midoriya's shirt. Although she would never admit it, she could already feel the heat rapidly rising in her face. Of course she had seen shirtless men before, her internet history was more than enough proof of that. But this was almost like unwrapping a christmas present that had been sitting under the tree for an entire month.

She quickly established to herself that she was only going to look under his shirt and not embark on the more daring route of taking a peak at the real treasure underneath his shorts. That was something she could wait a bit longer for...maybe.

With more than enough courage and little to know trepidation, Tokage took a deep breath and slowly lifted the cloth from atop his body. Making sure she used her other hand to secure the parts that protected the boy's modesty. Even though she could already tell that there was nothing modest about it. But that's a topic for a later chapter.

Fully prepared to burn the sight into her memory for the next time that she had some time to herself, Tokage raised his shirt all the way up to his chest and started taking as many mental pictures as she possibly could. However, what the girl ended up seeing made her freeze.

Years of learning proper first aid from both Kayama and her father had allowed Tokage to become very knowledgeable about different types of injuries. Including self-inflicted ones. And what she was looking at couldn't be categorized as anything but.

To her horror, all across the right side of Midoriya's abdomen were a series of scars. Ones that were clean, too clean. Every last centimeter of the cuts appeared to be meticulously placed to avoid another. She knew what those were, she wasn't an idiot. Dozens of clean cuts stacked on top of one another with what looked like practiced precision. There was only one possible explanation.

_"Oh my god."_ The girl unintentionally said in a hushed tone before immediately clamping her hand over her mouth.

In an instant, Tokage's lust was replaced by a feeling of dread. One that washed over her body faster than a cheetah in an open field.

No way, this couldn't be happening. There had to be some kind of mistake. Midoriya wasn't that type of person. There was no way that someone like him could be doing something like that. He wasn't a depressed person. A bit sheepish and nervous at times, sure. But a far cry from what she envisioned someone who engaged in that type of behavior.

The longer the girl looked, the more she was able to assess the situation. From what she could tell, these scars were old, very old. So much so that they had already healed up significantly. But that did little to subside her now flaring emotions.

Suddenly, a lot of things started to make sense and the dots were finally beginning to connect. She already knew that the boy had a pretty rough childhood due to his former quirkless status. But she never imagined that things had gotten this bad.

Tokage could feel the tears beginning to well up in her eyes, finally understanding just what her boyfriend had truly gone through in the earlier years of his childhood. It was far worse than she initially imagined, and it took all she had for her to keep her composure. The green haired girl quickly wiped her eyes and pulled his shirt back down before disappearing into her bathroom and closing the door behind her.

The girl sat silent against the wall for all of five minutes as she thought about what she had just seen. Trying to come to terms with a secret that she was certain that he did not want her to find out. What was she supposed to do? What could she do? Should she tell somebody? But if so, then who?

Another few minutes passed before Tokage finally decided to pull out her phone and begin scrolling through her contacts. There was only one person who she felt comfortable enough talking to about this right now.

-(o)-

T-Rex: Hey

T-Rex: Are you awake?

Lipstick: What the hell runt? Do you know what time it is?

Lipstick: Your dazzling older sister needs her beauty sleep.

T-Rex: I need to talk to you about something, it's important.

* * *

**A/N: I'm back! Sorry for the short chapter this time around, but I don't have as much time to write as I usually do because of work. But I thought that it would be good to put something out since the entire world seems to be quarantined inside their homes these days.**

**1\. Like I said before, I'm going to skim over the licensing exam because I want to hurry up and get to the work studies. Fair warning, I'm going to be switching things up quite a bit. The Overhaul Arc is one of the best in the manga, but there are other things happening in the world of this fic. **

**2\. So the secret is out now. What do you guys think Tokage will do with this new information? I have a pretty good idea about how I want to address it, but I'm open to suggestions.**

**3\. Next chapter is going to be a treat. Mainly because we're going to see quite the interesting interaction between two people with rather...strong and prideful personalities. But that's all that I'm going to say for now. **

**I have no clue when I'll be done with the next chapter. But either way, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a review/comment. And stay safe out there!**


	37. Tornado

After her much needed talk with Nanao, Tokage still couldn't decide on how she would approach this new discovery of hers. According to her sister, who was a psychology major, outright confronting him about it right now was not a good idea. The main reason for this was because doing something so drastic might leave him feeling like he was backed into a corner. When it came to things like this it was best to: "_Strike while the iron is cold."_ and "_Ease into it."_

From the brief look that she was able to get, none of the scars on Midoriya's abdomen looked anywhere close to fresh. Which meant that it had been a while since the last time he cut himself. She didn't really know whether or not that was a good thing. But for the time being it was one less thing to worry about.

After getting off the phone with her sister, the girl began to wonder if she should inform one of the teachers about this. Kayama would obviously be her first choice, followed by Kan or Inui. But she needed time to figure out exactly how to broach that subject properly. Which was a lot easier said than done.

'_Does anyone else know about this?'_ The green haired teen then wondered before her mind immediately thought of Unohana. He was the only other person that she knew of with a similar problem. And him and Midoriya knew each other pretty well. So of course he had to have some knowledge about it. But what about any of the other students? She found it pretty hard to believe that none of the other boys had noticed since they all changed together during class. But Midoriya was more than smart enough to find a way to cover his tracks. At least now it made a lot of sense as to why he was usually the last one out of the locker room.

'_What about Ghosty?'_ She then asked herself. Out of everyone in their class, Yanagi was probably the closest to him besides her. The two did spend a lot of time together in and out of class. And the '_poltergeist'_ user could definitely keep a secret.

Deciding that she needed more time to think about how she was going to handle this, Tokage chose to play it safe for now and keep watch over him just in case. And above all, she was by no means going to tip him off about her finding out his secret.

* * *

The next morning however, that proved to be a lot easier said than done.

Surprisingly, Midoriya offered to cook breakfast for her. It was pretty early in the morning by her standards. But Tokage was not prepared to turn down the chance at her boyfriend cooking her a nice meal. Especially since their training for the licensing exam was getting more intense by the day.

"So...what's on the menu for today, handsome?" The girl grinned at him while trying to keep her mind in the right place. And her eyes off of a certain area.

"Just some bacon, eggs and toast. I wanted to try my hand at an "All American" breakfast, but we don't have any potatoes. So you won't be getting a side of hashbrowns." The boy answered.

"That's cool. I'd much rather have a side of you instead~." She said in a sultry tone while giving him a near-predatory look. Which was more than enough to make the boy blush.

Thankfully, Tokage didn't have to wait long for her morning feast. The two of them wasted no time in sitting down and digging into their breakfast before going over their plans for the day. Upon her first bite, she unwittingly let out a satisfied moan at the rush of flavor that exploded in her mouth.

"Y'know Izuku, if this whole hero thing doesn't work out you'd make an amazing housewife someday."

"Wow, thanks." He gave her a slightly sarcastic smile. "I'm not nearly as good of a cook as my mom. But I know enough to keep myself fed."

"Same." Tokage retorted. "Since my dad works so much, I pretty much had to teach myself how to work around a kitchen."

"Oh yeah, how is he anyway?"

"Same as usual. His department just started working with some guys from the Detnerat Corporation. Apparently, they're going into the hero support business soon and the company is going to be working alongside them."

"That's pretty cool."

"Yeah, I'm sure he'll tell you all about it the next time that you see him."

"It has been a while hasn't it? I'm looking forward to it. Maybe I can even invite my mom?" Midoriya suggested.

"That's actually a good idea. It would certainly make things less awkward." She smiled back.

After finishing their food, the young couple quickly cleaned the place up and started making their way back upstairs. Since training wasn't until this afternoon, they had more than enough time to hang out and catch up on some of the latest shows. However, Tokage had other plans in mind.

The moment the doors to the elevator closed, the girl placed her hands on either side of the boy's face and pulled him in for a kiss. This wasn't their first time making out in a "public" setting. And for Tokage, doing something like this just made it slightly more fun.

As for Midoriya, normally he would stray away from blatant acts of PDA like this. But the rational part of his brain wasn't really functioning at the moment. Every time his girlfriend did something like this, it was hard for him to do anything but follow her lead.

As the seconds passed, the two of them got more into it. And at one point, Tokage decided to throw caution to the wind by leaping up and wrapping her legs around the boy's waist. Locking their bodies in close together. In response, Midoriya gripped his hands underneath her thighs to keep her in place. The two greenettes were so lost in their own little word that they completely ignored the fact that the elevator had already stopped moving.

"Ahem!"

The sound of an exaggerated cough was enough to bring the young couple out of their make out session and freeze in place. Against their better instincts, both Midoriya and Tokage turned their heads to see none other than Ibara Shiozaki standing right in front of them. The vine haired teen was dressed in a white bathrobe and was holding a large cup of tea.

"Ibara...how long have you been standing there?" Tokage asked in a semi-joking tone while still very much wrapped around her boyfriend. Who's face was now redder than a ripe tomato.

Silence was the only answer she got as Shiozaki nonchalantly took a sip from her cup while giving them a very disapproving look.

"Well, sorry to hold you up. We'll be on our way now."

"Mhmm." Shiozaki nodded as Tokage hopped off of Midoriya and rapidly began pulling him towards her room. Partly to hide her own embarrassment, while also wanting to get right back to the morning festivities.

'_Dear God, please have mercy on their sinful souls.'_ The '_vine'_ quirk said a quick prayer before going about her business. Hoping to erase the memory of what she had just witnessed from her mind.

* * *

Before they even knew it, the day of the exam had finally arrived.

The students of 1-B were all crowded inside of the bus on their way to the exam venue. It was hard not to feel slightly intimidated by all of this. As far as they were aware, they were the only first year class taking the provisional license exam. So pretty much everyone here had way more experience than they did.

"Ugh...I'm getting kind of nervous." Kaibara groaned with some trepidation in his voice.

"Seriously, this is so fucking stressful. Oh man, what if I can't get my license?" Awase began mumbling while shaking Honenuki in the seat next to him.

"We'll be fine guys. All of us have been training our butts off for this. There's no way that we're going to fail." Said Kendou as she did her best to keep her classmates' spirits up.

"Hey, Kan-sensei!" Tetsutetsu suddenly shouted. "You got any tips and tricks for us to know before the exam?"

At the front of the bus, the blood themed hero rubbed his chin in thought for a moment before deciding to answer. He knew that he really shouldn't be telling them this and that they couldn't rely on him for guidance during the actual exam. But he didn't really see a problem with giving his pupils some pointers.

"Well...I remember when I took my exam all of us in Ketsubutsu pretty much ganged up on the U.A. students. We spent a couple of days looking at old Sports Festival footage to come up with battle plans against them." The teacher told them.

There was a brief silence before the students fully processed that information.

"Shit, I didn't even think about that." Kamakiri clicked his teeth.

"He's right, most of us were caught on camera during the Sports Festival. Especially the ones who made it to the tournament stage." Shoda followed up.

"Do you really think that the other schools would target us all like that?" Komori said in a nervous tone.

"It would certainly make sense." Midoriya replied. "On top of our lack of experience, we shouldn't put it past some of the other schools to try and go after people that they know."

"I agree with Midoriya-kun." Said Monoma. "As soon as we find out what the actual format of the exam is we need to come up with a strategy to keep us from getting mobbed."

"Well, we still have a while before we actually get there. I don't see the harm in doing some last minute prep." Tokage shrugged.

As the students began brainstorming possible scenarios and strategies for what they now knew was coming their way, Kan couldn't help but smile at how seriously they all were taking this. Aizawa would probably give him an earful if he ever found out that he told them about the infamous "Crushing of U.A.". But in his opinion, it was a teacher's duty to make sure that his students were well prepared for anything that came their way.

"We'll be arriving in about ten minutes. I want you all to do your best, you hear me?" The blood themed hero told his students.

"Yes sir!"

* * *

"We're the greatest fucking class ever!" Awase shouted in the middle of the floor while dancing around with Tsunotori and Tsuburaba.

"I still can't believe that we all passed!" Tetsutetsu also cheered while throwing his arm over Honenuki's shoulder in celebration.

"It got kinda dodgy there for a second. If it wasn't for Fukidashi-kun and Bondo-kun, I might've gotten taken out by those girls from Seiai Academy." Said Shoda in a relieved tone.

At the moment, the students of 1-B were all having an impromptu celebration after the stellar performance at the licensing exam. Miraculously, they all managed to pass. Which was practically unheard of.

All throughout the common area, everyone was living it up. Monoma and Shishida were in the middle of a riveting game of chess. Kamakiri and Kodai were in the kitchen preparing drinks for everyone. Most of the girls were crowded around one of the kitchen tables while talking about the exam. And pretty much everyone else was doing random things and passing around their grade sheets.

"Does anyone know how the 1-A guys did?"

"I texted Yaoyorozu-san earlier but she hasn't gotten back to me yet." Kendou answered.

"It wouldn't surprise me if they all passed too. I mean, they do have Bakugou and Todoroki. And those two are walking powerhouses."

"Speaking of powerhouses, I still can't believe that Tokage-chan knocked out five people in a single blow. I almost fell over watching that happen." Honenuki did his best to suppress his laughter.

"Dude, you should've seen that guy from Shiketsu when he went up against Tetsutetsu. Apparently he had a magnetism quirk and almost shit his pants when his body turned to copper!" Awase stated.

"I'm just glad that I ate some before the test started, otherwise I would've been screwed." The '_steel'_ quirk user announced proudly. "Still, I can't stand eating that stuff. It tastes like crap and it only lasted for a couple of seconds."

"Yes, we are truly blessed to have come out of this trial victorious. The lord smiled upon us on this fateful day and provided us with means to overcome these hardships." Shiozaki clasped her hands together in a prayer position before a beam of sunshine anointed her in it's radiant glow.

"So are we ever going to address that light thing, or are we just going to keep rolling with it?" Fukidashi turned to Kodai. Who couldn't do anything but give him an indifferent shrug.

* * *

While the festivities inside were in full swing, Midoriya, Yanagi and Tokage were sitting on the balcony outside the building. They were all having a pretty normal conversation about what happened back at the exam. That was until Midoriya's phone suddenly started ringing. The green haired boy checked the screen and saw that it was an incoming video call from Katsuragi.

He sent her a message earlier that he and the others passed the exam. And he figured that she was calling to follow up on that.

"Hello?" The boy said as the image of his pseudo-sister popped up on the screen in her regular, non-hero attire.

"_Izuku, congratulations! Nice job on getting your provisional license on your first try!"_ The woman said in a boisterous tone.

"Thanks."

"Hey, is that Blizzard?" Tokage asked.

"Really?" Yanagi raised an eyebrow.

"_Ah, is that Tokage-san and Yanagi-san? How are you girls doing?"_

"Pretty fuckin' awesome!" Tokage answered for both of them.

"_I presume that you two passed the exam as well."_

"Sure did!"

"_Well congratulations."_

"Thanks!"

"_So, I guess this means that your internships will be starting up again pretty soon. Usually U.A. allows you to do that once you get certified."_

"We haven't heard anything about that yet." Yanagi replied.

"_Well when that comes up you three are more than welcome to join me at my agency."_

"Really?" The three students said in unison.

"_Of course!"_ The green haired woman smiled. "_I'd be happy to have you all join me. Izuku and Yanagi-san would benefit from it greatly since we all have the same quirk. And since Tokage-san wants to be a rescue specialist, it only makes sense."_

"Can't really argue with you there." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user nodded in agreement.

"We'll ask Kan-sensei about it when classes start again on Monday." Midoriya told her.

"_Excellent."_ Katsuragi smiled. "_Anyways, I just wanted to give you a call and tell you how proud I am. I'm working the night shift today so I need to get going. Have a wonderful rest of your day."_

"You too." The three students said to her before the call ended.

"Man, we haven't even had our provisional licenses for a full day and we're already getting offers." Tokage joked.

"So how often do you and Blizzard talk on the phone?" Yanagi turned towards Midoriya and gave him a curious look.

"About once a week." He replied while scratching his cheek a bit bashfully.

"I see." The grey haired teen simply nodded.

"Yeah, apparently the two of them are like family now. I even heard him call her '_onee-chan_' on the phone."

Although she would never admit to it, Yanagi was actually kind of jealous of her friend. Ever since she was a kid, '_The Psychic Sisters'_ were some of her favorite heroes. They were actually a pretty big reason why she decided to try and become one herself. She used to watch videos of the two of them all the time when she was growing up. And she even had Tornado as her screensaver for a long time. When she first heard that Blizzard had decided to take him up under her wing, she felt pretty bad about not being the one to catch one of her idols attention.

But luckily, she got over those feelings pretty quickly. And now that she had the opportunity to train under Blizzard along with her friends, she was more than satisfied with that.

Midoriya suddenly stood up and began stretching his arms out before letting out yawn. "I'm still pretty tired from today. So I'm going to go take a nap. I'll see you guys later."

"Try not to dream about me too much." Tokage shot back with a grin. "I'm going to go join everyone else inside. I think it's high time that I whoop Monoma and Shishida's butt in chess."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." Yanagi agreed before standing up from her seat.

"See you guys later."

* * *

_~Later That Evening~_

It wasn't until a few hours later when Midoriya finally re-emerged out of his room. Most of the students were in their own rooms and relaxing after the taxing day that they had. And the only people present in the common area were Bondo, Shoda, Shishida, Fukidashi and Kodai. Who were all in the middle of a game of Super Smash Bros.

"What's up, Midoriya-kun?" Shoda said politely to his classmate.

"Where are you heading off to?" Fukidashi's thought bubble spelled out.

"Oh...I'm just going out for a jog. I need to stretch my legs a bit." The green haired teen replied in an unusual tone.

"Cool." Pretty much everyone nodded.

"Have fun."

"Yeah...no problem...dude." Was all the boy said before making his way out of the building.

"Hmm." Shishida began rubbing his chin with a thoughtful look on his face.

"What's wrong?"

"I believe that is the first time that I have ever heard Midoriya-san refer to anyone as…'_dude'_." The furry teen said.

"Now that I think about it. I haven't heard him say that before either." Fukidashi added.

"Hmm." Kodai nodded before everyone turned their attention right back to their game.

* * *

'_Jesus Christ...I'm glad that I didn't have to talk to anybody for too long. Especially that girlfriend of his. Trying to keep a low profile is hard when you live with a bunch of idiot teenagers.'_ Tatsumaki Katsuragi thought to herself as she continued walking towards the training field.

One of the added benefits of this new situation of hers was a bit of shared knowledge between her and Midoriya. Which allowed her to learn quite a bit about the boy. She may have known the names of all of his classmates and friends. But the woman wasn't about to press her luck during times where she borrowed his body.

But now that she was in the clear, the former heroine was more than ready to cut loose for a bit and have some fun. If she remembered correctly, the training field near Gym Gamma was open for anybody to use when class wasn't in session. And as much as she wanted to get out of this hellhole and pay her sister a visit, she knew that her control over this body was temporary and that it wasn't a good idea. So for now, she was simply going to get some practice in with her quirk.

'_I'm still under fifty percent of my maximum.'_ The woman pondered briefly. On top being only at a fraction of her strength, there was another issue that she was aware of. Each time she took Midoriya's body out for a stroll, she could feel her control of this vessel weakening. And the woman had a pretty good idea as to why.

Simply put, this was only a temporary arrangement. Eventually her and Midoriya's consciousness would merge into one. And she would very well cease to exist entirely. Anyone that knew Tatsumaki would agree that she was a strong-willed individual. And that might have been the only reason that she was able to do this. But in time, the former number four heroine would be no more. But until that fateful day arrived, she was going to milk this for all that it worth.

A couple of minutes passed by as Tatsumaki continued making her way over to the training field. But just as her destination came within eyesight, she decided to stop and address something that had been bothering her up until this point.

"Y'know...it's rude to go around stalking people." She announced as she turned around to face the building on her left. Doing her best not to sound like herself.

Silence was the only response that she received before the person that had been pursuing her for that last few minutes made their presence known. And from behind the corner, Katsuki Bakugou stepped out. He was dressed in a black tank-top with matching pants and had a look of absolute irritation on his face.

'_Oh, it's this asshole.'_ The woman thought. "Is there something that you need?"

"What are you doing?" Bakugou said in a tone that she would normally find unacceptable. But seeing as she had to keep up appearances, she wasn't going to throw the boy up against a wall.

"Hmph, I should be asking you the same thing...Bakugou. But if you must know, I simply wanted to get some late afternoon training in."

Something about the way she said that definitely rubbed the ashen blonde teen the wrong way. Which made it hard for Tatsumaki to suppress a slight grin on her face. Of course, thanks to her access to Midoriya's memory she knew quite a bit about the boy. And if there was one thing that she hated, it was people who thought they were hot shit. Which is why she made it a point to antagonize Endeavor whenever the two found themselves in the same room.

"Tch." Bakugou scoffed before getting right to the point. "You and I need to have a little talk. Come with me."

"And where exactly do you plan on taking me?" She asked condescendingly.

"Training Ground Beta."

"Yeah, I don't think so."

"What?" The boy gave her a weird look.

"We can have this little chat of yours in the woods on the east side of campus. It's a bit more private there."

"Whatever, just hurry your ass up." Was all that Bakugou said before shoving his hands in his pockets and walking in the direction of the woods.

Tatsumaki had a pretty good idea as to what was going on. But she saw this as the perfect opportunity to do Midoriya a favor and deal with a problem of his that had been going on for far too long.

'_Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.'_

* * *

The short walk through the school grounds was an awkward one to say the least. Not a word was said the entire time and Tatsumaki's patience was beginning to wear thin. The sun had just barely set and there were still a few hours until the students curfew. And the last thing she wanted to do right now was waste her valuable time dealing with some spoiled brat. But, this was just a necessary evil to the green haired heroine.

After another brief couple of minutes, the two of them stopped in the middle of the woods on the east side of campus. It was a small clearing that was more than good enough for a private conversation. Both individuals stood with a good fifteen meters of space in between them. And the painfully annoying silence continued on for another fifteen seconds or so before the former heroine decided to get this show on the road.

"So…" She spoke in a tone that certainly rubbed Bakugou the wrong way. "Care to explain why you drug me all the way out here?"

"You think you're pretty fucking slick. Don't you, Deku?" Bakugou simply said.

"First of all..." The woman scowled while placing her hand on her hip. "That will be the only time you call me by that name. It'd be in your best interest _not_ to do it again."

"Where the hell do you get off thinking _you_ can tell _me_ what to do?" Was the boy's immediate response. "Ever since coming to this school you've been acting like some big shot. What, you think that just because you now have that shitty quirk of yours that you can-"

Bakugou's mouth immediately clamped shut before he could finish what he had to say. For a split second, he wondered what was going on. But it was clear to him that this loser had just shut him up, literally.

"You have sixty seconds to make your point. But do watch what you say, I won't tell you again. Now...why did you bring me all the way out here?"

The irritated stare that Bakugou was giving her let Tatsumaki know that she was definitely the one in control of the situation. She knew that this boy wasn't an idiot, so she doubted that he would try something foolish.

"You passed the provisional license exam, didn't you?"

"Yeah...and you?"

"That's none of your damn business!" The ashen blonde howled back with a bit more anger than usual.

'_Ah, so that's what this is about.'_ The woman grinded slightly. She could tell a bruised ego from a mile away.

"There are a few things I want you to tell me. First of all, when exactly did you get a quirk?" The ashen blonde teen demanded.

"None of your damn business."

"What?"

"I'm _not_ going to repeat myself."

"What the hell is your fucking malfunction, you nerd? Back in middle school you used to cower at my very presence. Now you think that you can just speak to me whatever way you like? Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Someone far stronger than you, for starters." Tatsumaki said with a smug grin that did nothing to calm down Bakugou's rapidly growing anger. Even though she knew that Midoriya would never act this way, in this particular instance she felt the need to show as little regard for his former bully as possible. She absolutely loved knocking people down a peg. And this guy was almost easy prey.

"Tch…" The '_explosion'_ quirk user scoffed before continuing his inquiry. "Six hours…" Bakugou started.

"What?"

"Six hours is how long I was trapped alone with those losers villains. And during that time they did nothing but try and convince me to join their side. Me? Can you believe it? They thought that _I_ would do something as stupid as become a villain."

"Well, it's not like they were too far off the mark."

"What?!"

"Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about." Tatsumaki retorted. "Someone like you is more than suited to become a villain. After all, you harass people on a daily basis and yell the words '_die'_ or '_I'll kill you'_ every thirty seconds. And on top of that, that third rate quirk of yours is more suited for terrorism than it is heroics."

"You wanna try that again?" Bakugou grinded his teeth as he began letting off miniature explosions in his right hand.

"If anyone was the perfect candidate to become a villain, it would definitely be you."

"Wha- How dare you say something like that to me, Deku!" Apparently that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Originally, the ashen blonde teen was going to try and get some answers out of the green haired boy. But his attitude and entire demeanor was pissing him off. He had no clue what had gotten into the boy, but Bakugou certainly wasn't going to stand for the blatant disrespect that he had been receiving this entire time.

In the blink of an eye, Bakugou was soaring through the air after using his quirk to propel himself forward. But unfortunately for the ashen blonde teen, Tatsumaki's reaction speed was top class. He only made it about three meters before his body was forced to ground.

In a split second, Bakugou could feel his control over his own body slip away from him. Of course this wasn't his first time falling under the influence of the boy's quirk. But something about this was different. Before, it was just a simple feeling of weightlessness. Now, it was as if the very gravity around him was adding more pressure onto his body.

"Hmph, you've got a lot of nerve." Tatsumaki smirked as she casually walked up towards him. "I thought that you were supposed to be smart. You should know better than to attack someone who can end you without lifting a finger. I may only be at about forty percent of my maximum strength. But that's more than enough to handle you. Now...bow before me."

As soon as she said that, Bakugou's body began moving on its own. From his spot on the ground, the '_explosion'_ quirk user moved to a position where he was now on his knees with his hands pressed against his thighs and facing his enemy.

'_This bastard just made me kneel?'_

Using his eyes, Bakugou glanced up at Tatsumaki. The woman was now standing right in front of him with her arms folding across her chest. All while giving him a look that made his blood boil.

"Now, you're going to tell me exactly what you want, idiot."

"You...you helped out those damn villains! The police fed me some bullshit about you being mind controlled. But I didn't believe it for a damn second! What the hell were you thinking?"

"It's the truth." The woman shrugged. "This body _was_ being controlled."

"I don't believe you!"

"You can think whatever you want. It doesn't really matter to me."

"Stop lying to me you son of a bitch! You attacked me and then went after All Might. Because of you he almost lost against that villain boss."

"That overgrown buffoon was on his last leg anyway. It was only a matter of time before he went up against someone that he couldn't handle anymore. If you ask me, that old fossil should be thankful that the other heroes came to bail him out."

Bakugou couldn't believe what he was hearing. All his life, Midoriya idolized All Might. He practically thought of him as a god. And the fact that he had the audacity to say something like that in front of him was unbelievable.

"Look brat, this has been fun and all but I don't really have a lot of time. So I'm gonna get going. You should head back to your dorm and relax before you do something even more stupid than challenging me to a fight."

With that, Tatsumaki released her quirk and began walking towards the direction of campus. Finally giving Bakugou a chance to regain control over his own body.

"Don't you dare turn your back to me, Deku!" The boy shouted at her back. "If you think you're so strong now, then why don't fight me like a man?! I'll show you once and for all who's strongest!"

"Because it wouldn't even be a challenge." Was all the woman replied with. Suddenly, the area began shaking. And before Bakugou even knew what was going on, several of the trees around them were ripped out of the ground and began floating in the air. The ashen blonde teen watched as every single one of the trees began condensing and reforming into smaller and smaller shapes. Once they were done, ten newly formed wooden spears were aimed directly at him.

"**Gungnir!" **Tatsumaki announced confidently. This was a move of her's that she rarely ever used before she died. But it was more than enough to get her point across.

"However, if you truly think that you can take me on, by all means. Go ahead and try."

Silence was the only thing that came out of Bakugou's mouth as he stood in awe at the display of power that he just witnessed. And the ashen blonde teen instantly began trembling. What was happening? Was he actually experiencing fear right now? Fear brought on by the useless Deku of all people?

"I thought so." Tatsumaki smirked once again before levitating into the air. "Now if you excuse me, I've got some flying to do. Have a wonderful evening...Katsuki Baka-gou."

That was the last thing the woman said before flying off into the direction of the school. Leaving Bakugou with quite a bit to think about.

* * *

**A/N: So yeah, I totally forgot that I had the day off today. Since I didn't have anything else better to do, I decided to go ahead and start writing this chapter. And as luck would have it, I was able to finish it.**

**1\. So yeah, that conversation between Midoriya and Tokage isn't going to happen right now. But it is definitely coming. And it's going to be an emotional one. I have a plan for it, but let's hope that I can execute it the way that I want to. **

**2\. As of right now, I only have Tatsumaki making two more appearances before she's officially out of the story. I primarily just wanted to showcase how she really was since we've only seen her in flashbacks. But I also want to show the difference in skill. If you ever read the OPM manga, you would know that she's a pretty no-nonsense person and has an aggressive fighting style. Also...Midoriya may or may not learn this new "Gungnir" move in the near future. **

**3\. We officially get back to class next chapter and are going to start on the work studies. I think it was pretty obvious that Midoriya, Tokage and Yanagi were going to be working under Blizzard together. So there was no point in waiting to introduce that idea. **

**Like always, thanks for reading this trainwreck of a story and don't be afraid to leave a review/comment.**


	38. Next Step

The first day of the new semester went about as expected for the students of class 1-B. The syllabus they received from Kan that morning let them know that their overall workload was going to be increased for the new term. Which earned quite a few groans from everyone not named Midoriya, Tokage, Kendou, Yanagi, Honenuki or Kodai. But overall it wasn't anything that they couldn't handle.

Despite all of this, there was still a silver lining that the students were more than a bit excited about. And that was their upcoming work studies. Much like the internships at the start of year, the students had the opportunity to work under any pro hero of their choosing as long as they were accepted. Except now that they had their provisional licenses they would be granted a lot more freedom on the job.

At the moment, the students were getting ready to head out to lunch. They had a pretty easy schedule for the rest of the day, which did nothing to quell their overall excitement.

"So Izuku, you plan on actually eating lunch with the rest of us today?" Tokage asked the green haired boy as their usual group made their way through the hall.

"Oh yeah, it's been so long that I almost forgot." Honenuki interjected. "Where exactly do you run off to during lunch?"

Midoriya paused for a moment as everyone gave him a slew of curious looks. Only taking a second before giving them an answer. "O-oh well...I usually just go to the roof."

"Really?" Yanagi glanced back at him.

"Yeah."

"Well that certainly makes a lot of sense." Kendou said. "No wonder we could never find you."

Next it was Tetsutetsu's turn to speak up. "Y'know what, that sounds like a good idea. The cafeteria is usually packed. I bet the roof has a ton of space!"

"Then it's decided!" Tokage cheered. "Looks like the roof is our new lunch spot. Is that alright with you, Izuku?"

"Yeah, sure." The green haired teen nodded. He pretty much expected this to happen ever since Tokage found out about his secret hiding spot. In the past he looked forward to having some alone tone during the break. But nowadays he wasn't opposed to the idea of having some extra guests.

Just as the group of teens turned the corner, an all too familiar sea of sky blue hair made her presence known.

"Izu-kun!" The bubbly voice of Nejire Hadou shouted from across the hall. The group of first years all turned their heads to see the blunette walking alongside her classmate, Tamaki Amajiki.

"Tamaki, hey!" Kendou gave the boy a wave. Only for him to immediately hide behind his classmate.

"Hadou-senpai, how's it going?"

"Hey, hey, I heard that the first years are going to be starting their work studies pretty soon! Cool, huh? You know what this means, right? You can finally join me and Ryukyu at her agency. Doesn't that sound like fun?" The blunette said in an excited tone.

"Actually…" Midoriya said a bit bashfully while scratching his cheek. "I was already planning on working under Blizzard again."

"Really?" Almost everybody said in unison at that announcement.

"Yeah."

"Hmph!" Hadou began to pout. "No fair! I already called dibs on you."

"I'm sorry." The boy apologized with a bow.

"Hey." Tokage suddenly interjected after noticing a missing person. "Isn't there usually three of you? Where's that blonde dude with the crazy hair?"

"Oh yeah, Mirio-kun is busy with his work study. So he's not at school today." The girl quickly explained before an idea popped into her head. "Hey, why don't we all eat lunch together? Doesn't that sound fun? I haven't had a chance to talk to the rest of you first years yet. And you guys have some pretty awesome quirks."

"Sounds like nice idea for me." Tsunotori shrugged.

"Yeah, I don't see why not." Awase followed up.

"Alright, then it's been decided! Let's go!" Hadou cheered before grabbing Midoriya by the shoulders and pulling him in the direction of the cafeteria. Forcing the others to try and catch up with her.

* * *

It didn't take long before the group consisting of Midoriya, Tokage, Tetsutetsu, Kendou, Yanagi, Honenuki, Shiozaki, Tsunotori, Awase, Amajiki and Hadou to grab their food and make their way up to the school roof. It was a lovely day outside and the atmosphere was pretty much perfect to get some fresh air and avoid the usual madness of the cafeteria.

"Wait, so Blizzard offered to take on all three of you?" Kendou asked her fellow classmates in between her sips of coffee.

"Yeah, I was actually pretty surprised myself." Midoriya replied.

"Man, you guys are so lucky." Awase groaned in jealousy. "I don't know if I'll be able to even do a work study. School's already hard enough as it is."

"Well I'm excited! I can't wait to get started!" Tetsutetsu said confidently after taking a massive bite out of a chunk of aluminum foil.

"Are you sure that your GPA can handle that, Metalhead?" Tokage joked, only for the '_steel'_ quirk user to immediately deflate at the idea of his grades dropping lower than what they already were.

"I still think that you should join me at Ryukyu's agency. But Blizzard seems like the best fit for you. Hey, are you sure that you two aren't related? You guys look a lot alike and you have the same quirk. I'm pretty sure you can pass off as her younger brother."

"Believe me, we've been trying to get Midoriya-kun to admit to it all year." Honenuki chuckled.

Next it was Shiozaki's turn to speak. "I've been meaning to ask, what are the work studies like? They can't be much different from our internships, can they?"

"Essentially they're not. You just have a lot more freedom to help out the pros that decide to take you on. And you can get called in at any time to help out." Amajiki quietly responded while facing away from the group.

"Oh yeah, are you still working with Fatgum?" Kendou asked the indigo haired teen. Earning a silent nod.

"Seriously? I love Fatgum! He's a total badass!" Tetsutetsu's eyes lit up at that information . "Working with him must be awesome!"

"I desire to do work studies too. It sounds like much fun. I can't wait to start!" Tsunotori said.

"Aww, you're like the most adorable person ever, Tsunotori-chan! And I love your accent." Hadou said to the horned teen.

The conversation continued on like this for another five minutes or so before the door to the roof opened up. Everyone turned their heads to see a trio of 1-A students consisting of Tokoyami, Asui and Uraraka standing there with their lunches in hand.

"Hey, what's up 1-A. We haven't seen you guys in a while." Tokage was the first to greet them.

"I didn't know that this many people came up here during lunch, gero." Asui, the vice-rep of class 1-A with the long scar on her face said rather bluntly.

"Indeed, we assumed that no one else would be up here." Tokoyami continued.

"Yeah, this is kind of a new thing for us too. How have you guys been?"

"Pretty good, gero." The frog themed teen answered as the three of them sat down to join their fellow students.

"How did the licensing exam go for you guys? I texted Yaoyorozu-san, but she never got back to me." Kendou inquired.

"Half of us ended up passing." Uraraka answered.

"What happened?" Said Awase.

"Most of us got knocked out in the first part. The other schools pretty much ganged up on us at the start." Uraraka explained.

"You guys too, huh?" Honenuki asked. "If it wasn't for Kan-sensei tipping us off beforehand, we wouldn't have been prepared for that. Apparently they call it the '_Crushing of U.A.'_."

"It seems as though your class was far better prepared than we were. It was truly a turbulent trial, but some of us were still able to make it out victorious."

"_Doesn't he sound exactly like Kuroiro?"_ Awase whispered to Shiozaki who silently agreed with him.

"So, who all ended up passing?"

"Besides the three of us, gero. There was Momo-chan, Rin-kun, Kyoka-chan, Kaminari-chan, Shoji-kun, Toru-chan and Mineta-kun." Asui explained.

'_Wait, so Bakugou and Todoroki failed?'_ Midoriya and Tokage thought at the same time. It was hard to believe that the two strongest students in their class failed the exam. To be frank, they should've been guaranteed to get their licenses. But considering the former's attitude it wasn't all that much surprising. Todoroki however, was definitely a shocker.

"What about you guys?"

"All of us passed." The 1-B students echoed in unison. Which was quite the surprise to the others.

"So, are you guys taking part in the work studies?" Said Kendou.

"Yes." Tokoyami nodded. "I'll be working with Hawks again."

"The number two hero? Nice going dude!" Tetsutetsu flashed him a thumbs up.

"That's so cool!" Hadou spoke up. "The two of you are birds so of course he'd pick you. Hey, Tokoyami-kun, can you fly too? You're the one with that bird spirit quirk, right? I bet you can transform it into a pair of wings and soar around the sky like an eagle. Oh hey, we should start a flying club. Wouldn't that be awesome?!"

Something about what the girl said made the raven headed teen pause for a moment. Admittedly, Midoriya had the exact same question. If anything, Tokoyami more than likely had some trick up his sleeve that would grant him some level of aerial ability. He didn't know much about the boy besides his quirk. But he was definitely one of strongest amongst the first years in his opinion.

"What about you guys?" Tetsutetsu asked the other two 1-A students.

"I haven't decided yet, gero."

"Actually...I'm planin' on going to Ingenium's agency." Uraraka announced a bit nervously. "He asked me a while ago if I would like to work under him and his team. And it's too good of an offer to refuse."

Yet another surprise to add to the list for the 1-B students. Of course everyone was well aware of the situation concerning the famed Idaten Agency. With their flagship hero permanently out of commission and the wouldbe heir having been killed by Stain, there were more than a few questions about what direction the group would take in the future. But it was nice to see that they were still continuing hero operations for the time being.

From what they knew, Uraraka was probably the closest to the now deceased Tenya Iida out of everyone in 1-A. So it made sense that Ingenium would make her an offer. Their group dynamic was pretty much flawless and she would definitely make a good addition to the team.

"Man, you guys are so awesome!" Hadou cheered before everyone went back to their food.

-(o)-

Soon enough, lunch came to an end and the students were all on their way back to class.

"Izu-kun, Tokage-chan!" Hadou shouted at the two greenettes.

"Yeah?"

"What are you two doing this weekend?" The blunette asked somewhat impatiently.

"Nothing much." Tokage answered. "Why?"

"How would you guys like to go on a double-date with me and Yuyu this Friday? I've been wanting to do one for a while now and I think it'd be a lot of fun. You think so too, right? What do you say?"

"Seriously?" The green haired girl gave her a surprised look.

"Yeah!"

It suddenly occurred to Midoriya that he completely forgot about Hadou's girlfriend mentioning that to him a couple of weeks ago. With all the craziness surrounding the exams, it totally slipped his mind. The boy then glanced over at his girlfriend who was also giving him a curious look.

"Where do you plan on going?"

"There's this new Korean barbeque place that opened up not too far away from the school. They're having a special where you get half-off if you bring a group of four or more people. Yuyu's been wanting to check it out for a while now. Tamaki-kun and Mirio-kun won't be able to make it, so the two of you are the next best thing. Sounds awesome, right?"

Tokage took a moment to think about this proposal. It had been a while since her and Midoriya had been on an actual date. And now that exams were over, this was the perfect chance to make up for lost time. On top of that, she was certainly a fan of Korean barbeque. So that was just an added benefit. "Sounds like a good idea to me." She said with her signature toothy grin.

"Yeah, I think it would be a lot of fun." Midoriya followed up.

"Awesome! I'll text you the details later. See you guys later!" The blunette gave them one final wave before heading in the opposite direction to her class. Leaving the young couple to do the same.

"I'm kinda looking forward to this. We haven't gone out in a while."

"Yeah." The boy nodded.

Tokage was quick to grab him by the hand and begin leading him towards the class. They still had plenty of time before the bell rang, so they were no way in a rush.

"That reminds me...we're still going to the orphanage on Saturday, right?"

"Yeah, I already got the green light from Kan-sensei and Kosai-san is fine with it. Unohana-san is even going to be there since classes don't start for him until next week."

"Cool." Was her short reply. Actually, this was more than cool. This was the perfect chance for her to bring up a topic that had been plaguing her mind all week. "Hey, since we're on the subject. Can I ask you something?"

"What is it?"

"Brain-Boy isn't cutting himself anymore, is he?"

That question was enough to make Midoriya freeze in place. For a couple of seconds, he simply stared at her in bewilderment before she continued talking. "I first noticed it that time you helped him out during our internships. Plus he's almost always in long sleeve shirts. I don't plan on asking him about it or anything, but I was just curious."

"N-no, he's not doing it anymore." Midoriya replied rather easily. "He stopped a while ago. Before I met him."

"Good." She nodded. "I was worried for a second. That's not really something people should be doing."

"Y-yeah…." Midoriya nervously agreed.

"I remember reading something about self-harm stuff a while ago. Most of the time it's people who are really depressed and need some kind of release from all the stress in their life. Considering the fact that he used to get harassed in school, I'm really not surprised."

"Yeah...I-I can't really argue with you there."

Tokage quickly glanced down at the boy's abdomen before catching herself and looking back at him. "Have you ever felt like doing something like that before? I know you used to go through something similar before you did the whole homeschool thing."

"No, I can't say that I have." He answered rather quickly. Something about the way that she asked him that seemed odd to him. Almost like it was a loaded question and she was expecting some kind of answer.. '_Does she…?'_

"Okay." The girl simply shrugged. "Y'know, if you ever need someone to talk to about anything. Or just need to get something off your chest, I'm here for you."

"Thanks, but I'm fine. I'm past that part of my life. So you don't need to worry."

"Cool." Was all Tokage said before detaching her head from her shoulders and planting a few quick pecks on his lips.

"No PDA in the halls, you two! Hurry up and get to class!" The voice of Snipe randomly came from out of nowhere. Forcing the two teens to straighten up and rush back to their classroom before the bell rang.

* * *

Later that afternoon once classes were finally done for the day, the majority of the 1-B students were all lounging about in the common area.

"_Really, Hadou-senpai asked you about doing your work study with Ryukyu?"_ Midoriya asked Tsunotori as the two powered their way through their literature homework.

"_Yeah, totally crazy right? I ran into her on the way back to the dorms and the two of us just started talking. Next thing I knew, she offered to put in a good word for me with Ryukyu."_ The horned teen answered excitedly.

"_Well that's awesome. I'm happy for you."_

"_Thanks!"_

"Hey guys…" Yanagi interjected from across the table. "Can we please stick to Japanese while we're doing our homework?"

"Oh yeah, sorry." The two apologized.

"It's cool."

On the other side of the room, Tokage, Tetsutetsu and Awase were doing their math homework. Or more accurately, Tokage was doing her best to help the two boys out while they struggled to figure out exactly what they were doing.

"So you're going to ask that Amajiki dude to let you talk to Fatgum?" The green haired teen asked her childhood friend.

"Hell yeah I am!" The '_steel'_ quirk user replied. "You know Fatgum's one of my top five favorite heroes. Why wouldn't I jump at the chance to do a work study with him? And Amajiki seems like a cool dude. I'm sure he'd put in a good word for me."

"Well, I'm rootin' for ya'. Just try and make sure that you don't end up failing any classes because of this. I can't guarantee that I'll be able to help you out as much if we're all doing work studies. And your mom would be pretty pissed if I let you fall behind." She told him.

In all honesty, Tokage should've seen this coming. Tetsutetsu has been a fan of Fatgum ever since elementary school. She never really understood why he liked him so much. Only that it had something to do with the fact that they both had to eat to get stronger and that the BMI hero punched people really hard. So it wasn't a surprise to her that he was going to do everything that he could to work under him.

"Don't worry about it." The boy waved off.

Things continued on as normal for the next fifteen minutes or so before Monoma, Kamakiri and Tsuburaba came running down the stairs. The three boys were all wide-eyed and almost looked to be out of breath.

"Hey, have you guys seen the news yet?!" Tsuburaba asked the rest of the class.

"What's going on?" Kendou asked.

"Look!" The boy almost shoved his phone right into the orange haired teen's face.

Kendou examined the mobile device for a brief moment before her own eyes blew open. Prompting the rest of the students to become much more interested in what was going on.

"Well don't keep us in the dark. What's up?" Tokage said impatiently.

"They caught the 'Hero Killer'!"

"What?!" The entire building almost erupted.

"Oh, thank the lord!" Shiozaki clasped her hands together in joy after receiving what was certainly some delightful news. No one had forgotten what happened to their classmate at the start of the school year. And hearing that the man who ended his life was now behind bars was a massive relief.

Kamakiri was quick to pull out his own cell phone and walked right over to Midoriya. Wasting no time in showing his fellow green haired student the JNN article. "You might want to take a look at this."

Midorya grabbed the device from Kamakiri's hand and began scrolling through the article. The rest of the class started surrounding him, so for the sake of time he chose to read it out loud.

"Early this afternoon in west Tokyo near Minato Ward, the serial killer commonly referred to as "_Stain"_ was apprehended after making yet another attempt on a hero's life. The man has been wanted for the assaults and murders of over sixty-five heroes and sidekicks over the course of the last year…." He said.

"Who took him down, shroom?" Komori asked. Presumably speaking for everyone else.

"Keep reading!" Kamakiri demanded.

Midoriya was quick to comply before continuing on. "After receiving an alert signal, police and nearby heroes responded to the call. Details about the situation are still unclear as of yet. But from what information has been gathered, the pro hero who apprehended the villain was….Holy shit!"

* * *

_~Earlier That Day~_

When Fubuki Katsuragi woke up this morning, she thought that she was just going to have a regular and uneventful day. Her schedule was primarily filled with the administrative duties that came with running her own hero agency. Along with a quick trip to west Tokyo for a short meeting with the president of the HPSC. However, it looked like she was going to have to put her meeting on hold for the time being.

"Damn you, you false hero!" Stain, also known as the 'Hero Killer', shouted at the green haired woman as she wrapped a nearby fence around his body.

"Thanks Blizzard. If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead by now." Air-Jet, the "Buster Hero", said to her in a grateful tone as he continued to patch up the wound on his left leg.

"Don't worry about it." She replied. "I'm just glad that I decided to take a shortcut to the HPSC Headquarters building."

True to her word, the green haired heroine just so happned to be flying over the city when she caught sight of Air-Jet laying in a nearby alley in a pool of his own blood. Naturally the woman was quick to rush to his aid and showed up just in time to save him from what was sure to be certain death. Much to her surprise, she found herself standing face-to-face with someone who the police and heroes had been trying to track down for months. The infamous "Stain".

"I've heard that this man has some sort of paralysis quirk. Is that how he got you?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure it's activated by blood. I saw him lick some of mine after he stabbed me. Then my body completely froze up." The Buster Hero explained.

Blizzard was quick to turn their attention back to the captured villain. "Well...I guess today just wasn't your day. If it was anybody else besides me, you might've gotten away. But _I_ don't need to move my body to use my quirk."

"Silence you fake!" Stain barked back at her. "I know who you are, you're one of those 'Psychic Sisters'. You may have only recently started to clean up your act, but you're just like all the rest of them! All you care about is fame and recognition!"

"I'll admit that popularity used to be a priority of mine back when I was younger. But I haven't cared about stuff like that for a couple of years now. However, I will _not_ tolerate being talked down to by a psychopathic murderer." The woman countered.

"If you think that these restraints can hold me, then you're sorely mistaken!"

"Yeah, yeah, tell it to the cops." Air-Jet interjected after finally standing back on his feet. "I just sent the emergency signal out on the 'HN', the police will be here in a couple of minutes."

"Good." The woman nodded. "Well 'Hero Killer', it looks like this is your last day as a free man. You've built up quite a name for yourself. And I can assure you that you will not be seeing the light of day any time soon."

"Damn you!" Was all the masked man bothered to say before a crew of police officers and heroes showed up to the scene. He was quickly put into the back of an armored vehicle and taken away to the nearest precinct.

"Good job, Blizzard. We can all sleep a bit sounder tonight knowing that this maniac is finally off the streets." One of the police officers said to her in a grateful tone after taking her statement.

"I was just doing my job."

"Y'know, the hero rankings are going to be coming out pretty soon. I wouldn't be surprised if this gave you a massive boost."

"I'm not concerned about stuff like that." She waved off.

"Well thank you anyway. You're free to go. Our office will send the paperwork to your agency to be processed once we're done. Have a wonderful rest of your day, ma'am."

"You too."

When all that was said and done, Blizzard wasted no time in going about her business. Although she certainly felt proud of herself for finally bringing that sword-wielding maniac to justice. A part of her knew that she should expect some unwanted attention from the press pretty soon. It hadn't quite dawned on her that she just captured one of the most wanted criminals in the country yet. But once the news caught wind of this, the reality of what she had just done will certainly seep in.

'_I should probably give Lily and the others a heads up about this.'_ She thought before her mind wandered over to her late sister. '_Hmm, is this what onee-chan felt like when she took down Moonfish? Probably not. Actually, I wonder what Izuku will say about this when he finds out?'_

With that, the woman took off in the direction of her original destination. Thinking about how cool she was going to look to her younger brother once the news of this finally broke.

* * *

**A/N: First of all, let me start off by saying that I'm shocked that this story now has over a thousand followers. Apparently, it's been this way for a while and I'm just now noticing it. So thanks to everyone who's been reading and keeping up with this fic!**

**1\. So yeah, the work studies are going to be switched up quite a bit. I guess the biggest surprise is that Uraraka will be doing her's with the Idaten Agency. There's a reason for that, but I'll keep that a secret for now. Like I said before, this story is a 1-B focus, but I plan on making sure that the 1-A guys get some love.**

**2\. Next chapter will be the double-date/orphanage visit. Then after that we're getting into the heavy stuff. I don't know how long the work studies will last. But I'm going to try and condense it to about four or five chapters. And I'm pretty sure that you guys can already guess what this arc will be about.**

**3\. I've decided that I'm going to switch up the joint training arc as well. It's going to be a mix between the one in canon and a "school vs school" competition. One of my friends at work floated this idea to me and I kinda like it. What non-U.A. students do you want to see make an appearance in the story? And who do you want them to go up against. I already have a couple of ideas. But I wanted to see who you guys would like.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review to let me know what you think.**


	39. Work Studies Begin!

Before they knew it, Friday had quickly arrived.

As he sat and waited in the common area for his date to show up, Midoriya once again checked himself to make sure that he was good to go. He had everything that he needed, including his wallet and cellphone. And there was nothing wrong with his outfit as far as he could tell. The green haired youth was sporting a pair of blue jeans with a simple red flannel shirt, along with his signature red shoes.

The boy couldn't help have a pretty good feeling about this outing. There were no issues at school this week. His first counseling session with Inui was a lot less stressful than he had initially thought. And now he was going to start off the weekend by having a good time with his girlfriend and some upperclassmen.

'_Girlfriend...yeah, I still can't get used to that.'_ Midoriya thought to himself with a slight smile on his face. It wasn't too long ago that the mere idea of him having a girlfriend seemed like a foolish dream. Almost up there with actually having a quirk and getting the chance to become a hero.

"Alright, I'm here!" A cheery voice brought the boy out of his thoughts.

As soon as he turned to face her, Midoriya's brain momentarily froze at the sight before him. Standing there, in a royal blue sundress with matching sandals was Tokage. The girl's moss green locks were tied back into a ponytail and she was also sporting a pair of white bracelets on either wrist.

'_Amazing…'_ Midoriya said to himself as the girl made her approach.

"So...how do I look?" Tokage asked while twirling around to give him a full view of her outfit before striking a pose.

"Y-you look great. Like...amazing." He stuttered a bit as he tried to regain his nerve. "And I r-really like that dress."

"Well thank you." She smiled at him. "You don't look half bad yourself. Red's a good color on you."

"Thank you." He simply nodded.

"Now, before we go…" The girl said while pulling her phone out of her front pocket and wrapping her arm around him. Before he really had a chance to react, Tokage took the liberty of snapping a few quick photos of the two of them. They were pretty good pictures from what he could tell. And he definitely made a mental note to remind himself to ask her to send one of them to him to save in his phone for later.

"Alright, let's hurry up and meet up with Hadou. I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to this."

"Yeah, me too." Was all he said before the green haired duo made their way out of the building.

* * *

By the time the group finally arrived at the restaurant, the place was already packed and bursting with energy. All over the dining area was a slew of people from all different walks of life. Salarymen, students, a couple of off-duty pro heroes, you name it. On first glance the place looked to have some sort of old-school Korean vibe to it. And judging by the almost intoxicating aroma flowing through their nostrils, the group of students knew that they were in for a good time.

"Oh man, my mouth is already watering!" Tokage grinned while growing increasingly impatient.

"Yeah, this place is pretty popular. I'm glad that we got a reservation." Haya told her as their party walked over to the counter.

"Welcome, do you all have a reservation?" The lady behind the cash register asked in a polite tone that sounded a bit too rehearsed.

"Yeah we do!" Hadou was the first to respond. "Hadou, party of four ma'am!"

The woman took a brief second to search through the list on her computer before nodding and directing the students to their area.

"Hey, isn't that Midoriya? The guy that got kidnapped by those villains."

"Yeah, I think you're right. Holy shit!"

"Man, that must've been rough. I wonder what happened to him?"

"I recognize that blue haired chick too. I've seen her in pictures with Ryukyu. I think she's like her sidekick or something."

"I'm pretty sure all of them go to U.A.."

"Lucky bastard, why does he get to hang out with a ton of pretty girls."

"Better make sure he doesn't hear you. You remember what he did to the blonde haired kid during the Sports Festival, right?"

Luckily they heard none of that. And once the four of them finally sat down at their table, Hadou wasted no time in rambling on about how cool the restaurant looked. And how jealous her two other friends were going to be when she tells them about it.

"Wow, this place is pretty awesome! Don't you think, Yuyu? Huh?"

"Yeah, I bet the food here is amazing." The redhead teen smiled.

"I don't think I've ever had Korean food before." Midoriya admitted while looking around the area.

"Well you're in for a treat." Tokage patted him on the shoulder. "Korean barbecue is the best!"

"Tokage-chan's right. They let you cook your own food and we get to stay here for a whole hour. It's like an all you can eat custom buffet." Said Hadou in a more excited tone than before.

It only took a few minutes for the food to arrive and even less time for them to get the party started. As they placed their selected choices of meats on the open hot-plate in the middle of the table, the group decided to engage in some polite conversation.

"So, are you guys excited to finally get your work studies started? They're so much fun. And Blizzard's super cool too. Y'know Izu-kun, you're really lucky to get to work under someone with the same quirk as you."

"That's what I said." Tokage joined in. "She's like the perfect teacher for him. And she's a top notch rescue hero too."

"I read that she took out the 'Hero Killer' a few days ago. That must've been scary." Haya put her two cents in while stacking more meat onto the hot-plate.

"Oh, do you think that's going to boost her hero ranking? She dropped off quite a bit over the last few years. Ryukyu's probably gonna be in the top ten again this time around. Wouldn't it be awesome if Blizzard made it too? She's number thirty now isn't she? That'd be a major jump in such a short time. It's weird that she's so low since her quirk is so powerful and she's all over the place."

"Yeah, that'd be pretty cool." The green haired boy agreed with his upperclassman. Now that he thought about it, he never did get a chance to ask his pseudo-sibling why she stopped caring about hero rankings so much. Early in her career, Katsuragi seemed to care about it quite a bit.

'_It probably has something to do with Tatsumaki's death.'_

"You're right about that." Tokage then said. "Either way, I'm really looking forward to it. Our internships got cut short the last time. But now we get the chance to do some actual hero work with a top hero."

"I've been meaning to ask you, Tokage." Haya then turned her attention to the girl. "Are you related to Midnight-sensei? She's mentioned you a couple of times when we were setting up for the Sports Festivals."

"Not really. Aunt Nemuri's been with my family ever since I was a kid. My dad makes her costumes." The girl answered.

"Oh, so he's a hero support engineer? That's pretty cool."

"Oh hey, hey, I heard a rumor that she was crushing on somebody pretty hard. Some of the other students in our homeroom mentioned it a couple of times. Have you heard that? Do you know who it is? C'mon tell us." Hadou asked the girl in an inquisitive tone.

The green haired youth couldn't help but smile at that. "Oh yeah, totally. She's absolutely in love with my dad. She's been trying for years to get him to go out with her."

"Woah, really? That's so awesome! She's kinda like your stepmom then. Y'know, I saw her drawing pictures of some guy's face this one time in class while we were taking a test. I bet it was him."

"Oh really?" If anyone thought that Setsuna Tokage was just going to let some juicy information like that slide, they were dead wrong. Not only was this excellent ammo for her to use the next time that the "R-Rated" heroine tried to tease her. She was determined to see if she could get her hands on one of these alleged drawings.

"You're plotting something, aren't you?" Midoriya gave her a skeptical look. Only to receive a devious grin in response.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to dig in." Haya announced before the redhead began stacking pieces of cooked meat and sauce onto her plate.

The other students nodded and quickly followed her lead by doing the same. Overall, it was a pretty great outing. A lot more fun than Midoriya had been expecting. By now the boy was still getting used to doing these kinds of things. But he was glad that he got to share this experience with people that he could consider his friends.

* * *

Eventually, their Friday night outing came to an end and the group of U.A. students were able to make it back to campus before it got too late. After saying their goodbyes to Hadou and Haya, the young couple decided to stroll around the school grounds for a bit before heading into their building. And since they still had an entire hour until curfew, they had more than enough time to enjoy the night air. The roads were empty and it was apparent that privacy wasn't going to be an issue.

"That was pretty fun, huh?" Tokage tucked her hands behind her back as she walked backwards while still facing him.

"Yeah, definitely. I really enjoyed myself." Midoriya replied.

"It's amazing how much food Hadou can eat. I guess all those calories just go straight to her boobs and ass. Must be nice..."

Midoriya's face flushed with red as he stumbled. "I...d-don't know how to respond to that."

Seeing as she got the exact reaction that she was looking for, all Tokage could do was giggle at her boyfriend's expression. "I know, I just like seeing you get all flustered when I bring up stuff like that. But c'mon, I mean it's not even fair. She's walking around with watermelons in her chest and I'm stuck with _these_."

The girl proceeded to boldly cup her own chest before lightly juggling her mounds in his face. If there was ever an action to cause Midoriya to completely forget how to process thought, that was definitely it. And it certainly didn't help that a good amount of Tokage's cleavage was showing through her neckline.

"Setsuna!"

"Hahaha! Oh man, seriously Izuku you're just too easy some times!" She giggled as she put her hands on either side of his face, pulling his focus onto her. "Hey-hey, I'm joking."

He slowly managed to calm himself down. "You really are too much sometimes."

"I know. But I just like seeing you all hot and bothered like this."

"It's not very funny."

Tokage then shook her head. "It's hilarious." She followed up by kissing his nose before stepping away. "And cute."

Midoriya's blush worsened before it slowly began to fade. "I… uh…" He took a deep breath. "O-Okay…" He smiled determinedly, "I'm… I'm going to get you back."

"I'd like to see you try." She smirked confidently.

The two continued their walk around the campus before Midoriya finally decided to try something that he'd been waiting to do all afternoon. He himself knew that he was still an amateur when it came to the whole romance thing. But according to a few blog articles that he read, doing something spontaneous was just what he needed.

"Hey." He turned to face her.

"Hmm?"

"I want to try something."

"What is it?" The girl gave him a curious look.

"Just uh...close your eyes." He asked.

Tokage gave a quick shrug before doing as she was told and clamping her eyelids shut. Without any warning, Midoriya suddenly grabbed the green haired girl by her waist and Tokage instantly felt her feet leave the ground. It took her all of one second to realize that the boy had just activated his. And judging by how the wind was now moving at a faster pace than before, they were slowly moving upwards.

"Izuku, what are yo-"

The girl didn't get a chance to finish her question before the feeling of Midoriya's lips pressing against her own silenced her. Now when it comes to the dynamic of their relationship, Tokage was usually the one to initiate intimate contact. Which she didn't have a problem with. But she would be lying if she said that she didn't enjoy the rare occasions when Midoriya took charge.

"Okay, you can open your eyes now." The boy said in an uncharacteristically smooth voice after the two parted lips.

Tokage simply did as she was told and opened her eyes to see that two greenettes were floating pretty high up into the air. Before she spoke, the girl took a moment to look around and was taken aback by the view. From where they were, she could see the entire school along with a good part of the city skyline in the horizon.

"Pretty nice, huh?" Midoriya said to her with a grin.

She couldn't exactly put it into words, but there was something about the way that the light hit Midoriya's face that managed to highlight the boy's features. The soft glow gave the boy a slightly angelic tone and his emerald green locks almost looked as though they were shining. The two stayed like this for another few seconds, all while slowly twirling in a clockwise motion.

The next thing that Tokage did was place her hand on the boy's cheek and smile at him. "I like you."

"What?" He gave her a confused look.

"I like you. I don't think I've actually told you, so I thought I'd let you know."

"W-well thanks." Midoriya blushed a bit. "I like you too."

"Of course you do, who doesn't?"

That was the last thing that was said between the young couple before descending back to the earth and walking back to their dorm hand in hand. Both of them greatly appreciating their wonderful night out.

* * *

_~Saturday Morning~_

After the short train ride over to Saitama Prefecture, Midoriya and Tokage were making the journey towards the orphanage. It was their first time going there in quite a while and the 'telekinesis' user was really excited to see everyone again. Before they knew it, the young couple found themselves arriving at the building and were greeted by Kosai at the door.

"Midoriya-kun, Tokage-san, it's so nice to see you again. It's been far too long."

"Hello Kosai-san, sorry I haven't been able to drop by recently. School's gotten pretty busy." The green haired teen bashfully rubbed the back of his head.

"Nonsense." The blonde haired woman waved off. "I'm just glad that you are alright. After hearing about what happened, all of us were worried about you."

"Well, I'm fine now. I'm sorry causing all of you so much trouble."

The three chatted for another few seconds before entering the building and making the trip over to the library. Once they got to their destination, Midoriya didn't even make it two steps past the doorway before a semi-strong force tackled him to the ground.

"Midoriya-san!" Two tiny voices said in perfect sync. The boy then opened his eyes and allowed his vision to clear up enough to see two patches of purple hair laying on top of him.

"Kanao-chan, Kanae-chan?"

"We heard what happened on the news, are you okay?!" The first of the two twins asked in a worried tone.

"Those meanies didn't hurt you did they?!" The other one quickly followed up without giving him a chance to reply.

"Did you get saved by All Might and Endeavor?"

Back near the doorway, all Tokage could do was laugh at the spectacle before her. The sight of seeing her boyfriend pinned down to the ground by two seven year old's was exactly what she needed. "Oh man, that was pretty funny. I think the two of them were worried about you, Izuku."

"Tokage-san!" The rambunctious duo shouted in unison.

"How's it going you rascals?"

"Alright you two. I'm sure the last thing that Midoriya-kun needs is you guys bothering him about stuff he doesn't want to talk about." Unohana made his presence known while casually walking up to the group. The pink eyed boy proceeded to lift the two children up off of Midoriya before setting them back down on the ground.

"What's up man, how you been?"

"I'm doing alright." Midoriya replied.

"Brain-Boy, I haven't seen you in a while." Tokage chimed in. "How's college life treating you?"

"Pretty good so far. I start classes next week." He replied with a slight smile. "But I already got a chance to check out the science labs at the university and I'm really excited to get started."

"Cool, cool." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user nodded her head. "Oh yeah, I told my sister to be on the lookout for you. Have you had a chance to meet her yet?"

Suddenly, a not-so-subtle amount of blush appeared on the quirkless teen's face. And for a moment his eyes drifted off to the side before shaking his head and coming back to his senses. "Yeah…I met Nanao-san the day I moved in. She's…got a lot of personality."

Tokage had a pretty good idea as to why Unohana suddenly became so flustered. But she decided to have mercy on the boy and not embarrass him too much in front of the others. "Glad to hear it. Just remember to avoid her when she starts drinking. She has a habit of getting…_handsy_ with people."

'_That must run in the family, huh?'_ Midoriya shot the girl a look while keeping his thoughts to himself.

"Noted." Unohana agreed without missing a beat.

After their brief introduction and taking another moment to catch up the group wasted no time in getting right down to business. Because of the start of the new semester, there wasn't really a lot of homework for most of the kids. So it was pretty easy making sure that everyone got the help that they needed. The study/tutoring session went on for a good hour and some change before Kosai announced that the younger kids were going to take a break. Leaving all of the older residents to kick back and relax for a bit.

"So, how was your vacation to I-Island?" Tokage started off the conversation while taking a sip from her water bottle.

"It was actually a lot of fun. That place really is amazing." Unohana responded.

"It's sad that they had to postpone the expo, though." Said Midoriya. "But it makes sense after that bombing happened."

"Yeah, it was pretty crazy. Luckily I was on the other side of the island when all that went down. Whoever decided to do that is seriously messed up in the head."

"Where exactly did it happen?"

"From what I was told it was an 'R&D' lab for heroes run by some American company. No one was there when it happened. But apparently over three billion yen in equipment and research data got destroyed." The quirkless teen further explained. Neither of the two heroes course students could explain it, but there was something odd about the way he said that.

"That sucks." Tokage stated.

"Still, it was a pretty awesome trip. And I met a ton of cool people."

"Really, like who?"

"You guys have heard of David Shield, right? Well I actually got to hang out with his daughter, Melissa, for a couple of days."

"Wow, that's amazing!" Midoriya suddenly perked up at that announcement. David Shield was a legend. Not only was he a Nobel Prize winner, he was a leading expert in the hero support industry.

"Look at you Mr. Genius. Was she cute? I bet you got her number didn't you~?" The green haired girl immediately began teasing him.

"Oh definitely not." The boy waved off. "Actually, the two of us didn't really get along that well."

"Why not?" Midoriya asked.

"Is she like an asshole or something?"

"No, nothing like that. We just have differing views on a lot of stuff." Was Unohana's short reply. Midoriya couldn't help but feel like there was a bit more to that statement than what his friend was telling them. But he decided to ask him about it later.

"So Unohana-san, are you going to be working on any new projects after you finally start class?"

"You bet I am! And I already have one cooked up that I think is really good."

"Well don't keep us in the dark, Brain-Boy. What is it?"

The boy's entire demeanor suddenly shifted to one of pure excitement. "I'm looking into creating a new kind of biofuel." He announced. "Even though cars and trains run on electricity nowadays, planes still need fossil fuels to function. After my water purification project did so well, the school's science department is giving me a lot of freedom to work on this."

"That sounds incredible." Said Midoriya.

"And complicated as hell." Tokage followed up.

"I know right!" The boy smiled. "I've already been doing a lot of…research into this topic for the last couple of months. And I have a pretty good idea on where I need to focus my attention."

"Wow Unohana-san, you're really incredible." Midoriya smiled. Happy that his friend was moving on to do more amazing work.

The trio continued with their conversation for a little while longer before Kosai announced that break time was over. The rest of the morning was a rather enjoyable experience for the two U.A. students as well as the residents of the orphanage. Overall, it was definitely a good day.

* * *

It wasn't until Sunday evening when the trio consisting of Midoriya, Tokage and Yanagi finally arrived at the Blizzard Hero Agency. There were quite a few heroes and staff wandering around the place. Which was a bit surprising considering that it was still technically the weekend. But as they already knew, heroes are needed at all times throughout the day.

"Hey, you guys finally decided to show up!" A familiar voice called out to them from behind. The trio turned around to see Madoka Ozehana, also known as Ember, giving them a friendly wave.

"Ember, how's it going?" Tokage was the first to greet her. "Are you working right now?"

"No, I'm actually about to leave for the day."

"Oh."

The muscular black haired woman then extended her hand out towards Yanagi. "We haven't had the chance to meet yet. I'm Madoka Ozehana."

"It's nice to meet you." The '_poltergeist'_ user said in her usual stoic tone of voice.

"So, are you guys ready for your work studies? You're going to be here for the next couple of days, right?"

"Yes." The three nodded.

"Cool, well I look forward to working with you. The boss is in her office, you guys can just head on up there. I'm sure Midoriya-kun remembers how to get there."

"Thank you." The students said to her before making their way towards the elevator.

It only took a few minutes for the wannabe heroes to find the office of their new mentor. Like most heads of a company, Katsuragi's office was located on the top floor of the building. The place was pretty extravagant and it had more than a good amount of windows lining the walls. Which were no doubt useful for when the psychokinetic heroine didn't feel like using a door.

"Hello you three, how are you all doing today?" Katsuragi smiled at them from behind her large wooden desk.

"Pretty pumped up and ready to go!" Tokage answered back confidently.

"Glad to hear it."

"Thank you for agreeing to let us work with you, Blizzard-san. I look forward to learning under you." Yanagi said in a polite town while giving a low bow.

"No need to be so formal with me, Yanagi-san."

"Alright."

"So what's the plan for us today?" Midoriya was the next to speak.

"Nothing for today. It's already pretty late and I wanted the three of you to get settled into your rooms and go over a few things before we head out tomorrow." The woman replied.

"What things?"

Katsuragi quickly directed them to set their bags down and have a seat before getting right to business.

"So, as the three of you know we here at the Blizzard Agency specialize in rescue operations. Most of our work includes disaster response and relief, search and rescue operations, general hero duties and what not. Almost all of the thirty-six heroes and sidekicks here, including myself, have quirks suited for that line of work. "

"Yeah, your agency is pretty famous for their quick responses to disasters all over the area."

"However…since the last time that you guys were here I've been working a special case alongside Edgeshot and the local police."

"And what is that?"

The woman turned towards Midoriya and Tokage before answering. "You two remember that suicide bomber situation that happened during your internships, correct?"

Both greenettes thought back to the final day of their internships at the start of the school year. How could they forget? It was the first time either of them had come anywhere close to actually dying. If it wasn't for Katsuragi's quick action, they and everyone else in the area might not have made it through the day.

"Yeah…"

"Well, currently there is an investigation going on into that event and the likelihood that it was connected with the other bombings that have been happening around the country. Unfortunately, the investigation hit a standstill not too long after the assailant was brought into custody. On account of him shooting himself in the head after being taken in for questioning."

"Holy shit..." Tokage shuddered slightly. She herself suspected that the person from that day had some connection to the attacks going on. But committing suicide before questioning could begin showed that these people were not playing around.

"Are we going to be helping you with this?" Yanagi inquired.

"That still has yet to be determined. Don't take this the wrong way, but all of you are still very green when it comes to hero work. So I have no intention of involving you if I don't think that you can handle it."

"That's fair."

"So for now, you three are only going to join me on regular patrols. Once I get an accurate assessment on where you are in terms of ability, we can move on to the more advanced stuff."

"So is that all we're going to be doing tomorrow?" Midoriya then asked.

"Yes." Katsuragi nodded. "Tomorrow morning we're going to have a short training session with Lily and Ozehana-chan. After that, we'll be patrolling for the rest of the day."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Tokage smiled. She was hoping to get to the fun stuff right off the bat. But she didn't mind having a little bit of downtime to relax and get prepared.

"In the meantime, you three are good to go to your rooms and get comfortable. All of you will be staying on the fourth floor. We'll start bright and early tomorrow so make sure you get plenty of rest. I'll be staying the night here as well, so if there's anything that you need I'll be available."

"No problem boss! C'mon Izuku, now that we have some free time we can watch that movie I've been wanting to check out. And I'm in dire need of some cuddling right about now." Tokage proudly announced before draping her arms around Midoriya's shoulders.

"Y-yeah, sure." He smiled at her.

"Not so fast there lovebirds." Katsuragi interjected. "I may be lenient, but even I'm not _that_ irresponsible. Izuku will be sleeping in his own room, while Tokage-san and Yanagi-san share a different one. And just to be safe, you'll all be on opposite ends of the hall."

"Aww man…." Tokage groaned.

"I don't know what you were expecting." Yanagi said to her classmate in a dry tone. Successfully hiding the slight amusement that she got at the girl's displeasure.

"Hey, can't fault a girl for trying." Tokage shrugged with a sly grin.

"Be in the training room in the basement at six o'clock sharp. Make sure that you wear some workout clothes and don't be late." The green haired heroine then ordered.

"Yes ma'am!" The trio of students replied before taking their leave.

* * *

_~Later That Night~_

Begrudgingly, Katsuragi woke up to the sound of an obnoxiously loud knock coming from her bedroom door that drug the woman out of her restful slumber. Despite being a well-seasoned pro with five years of experience under her belt, the woman absolutely hated being woken up in the middle of her sleep. It was part of the reason why she hardly ever spent the night at her agency. Especially since it was more often than not someone on the night shift coming to tell her some bad news. But seeing as she was currently responsible for a group of teenagers under her care, there wasn't a lot of room for complaining.

Against her will, the green haired woman levitated herself out of bed and used her quirk to slide her sandals onto her feet before answering the unwanted summons. When she finally opened the door, she was surprised to see that it was Midoriya who was the one standing before her. The boy had his arms folded across his chest and was tapping his foot in an impatient manner.

"Izuku, what's up?"

"You got a minute? We need to talk." The green haired youth said in a peculiar tone of voice. Something that the woman wasn't used to seeing from him.

"Uh...sure, come on in." Katsuragi stepped aside to allow him entry into her room. As she watched him, she started taking notice of how Midoriya was carrying himself. First and foremost, instead of actually walking the boy just casually floated over to the chair before setting himself down. Second, was the way that he was sitting. Instead of his usual posture, the boy sat with his arms folded across his chest and his right leg placed over his left. Very similar to a certain someone that she knew.

"Sit." Midoriya then said in a way that made it sound like a demand more than a polite request. Interested to see exactly where the boy was going with this, the green haired heroine took the seat right across from him.

"So...what did you want to talk about?"

Midoriya let out a brief sigh while he pinched the bridge of his nose. Obviously whatever was on his mind was something serious. "Look, first of all...I need you to promise me not to freak out about what I tell you. What I have to say is already hard enough to believe, and I'm really not in the mood to repeat myself."

"Alright." Fubuki tilted her head in confusion.

"As incredibly insane as this sounds...I am _not_ that little nerd." He started off.

"Izuku, what are you talking about?"

"Like I just said, I am not Midoriya. I may be using his body and his voice at the moment, but in reality...it's me, Tatsumaki."

There was a brief pause while Fubuki tried to process that declaration. Did she hear that correctly? Of course she didn't. Her fatigued mind must've still been a little foggy. Because she could've sworn that Midoriya just said that he was actually her older sister. Sure, he had her cells in his body. But that was pretty much it.

"Izuku, what-"

"You have a scar on your right ankle from that time you fell off a tree when you were seven. Mom and dad got you a limited edition Gang Orca plushie for your twelfth birthday after you begged them for it for three months straight. When you were fourteen, you tried to cut your own hair and ended up chopping off your bangs. And you wore a ponytail for a good three months before it all grew back."

That statement was enough to make Fubuki take a long pause. What was going on? How did Midoriya know any of that? "How do you-"

"You used to wet the bed until you were ten. Your first kiss wasn't until your last year in middle school. And throughout your entire time at U.A., you were absolutely head over heels for that American exchange student in your class. You know who I'm talking about. The annoying one with the enhancement quirk who used to shave his head and run around in that ridiculous yellow cost-"

"Stop!" A now blushing Fubuki placed her hand over the woman's mouth. Trying desperately to not be reminded of anymore of her more shameful secrets. Suddenly it dawned on her. The realization hit her like a freight train. There were only two people on earth that she ever confessed that to. The first was Lily, who could be trusted with the most dire of secrets. The other…

"Onee-chan!" The woman blurted out with an expression of absolute astonishment on her face.

"Yes, like I already told you, it's me. You damn brat."

"What...how? B-but...you...you're dead!"

"As it turns out...not everybody dies when they're killed." Tatsumaki quipped in a rather dry tone.

If there was ever a time where Fubuki Katsuragi thought that she had lost her mind, it was definitely right now. As much as the woman wanted to blame this entire situation on her own imagination, she couldn't. Of all the crazy things that she had experienced in her short twenty-three years of life, this was definitely at the top.

"I don't exactly know how this is possible. But my best guess is that my consciousness was transferred along with my quirk." Tatsumaki quickly explained.

"This can't be happening." The other Katsutagi sibling began rubbing her temples. Desperately trying to rationalize what was happening.

"Well, it is."

"Wait!" The younger woman interjected. "If you're really here, then what about Izuku?"

"Don't worry about the brat, he's fine. He's in dreamland right now."

"Does he know about this?"

"That kid already has enough problems going on in his life right now. The last thing he needs to hear is that a dead person is using his body every other time he falls asleep."

Fubuki made a mental note to follow up on that declaration at a later time. Aside from his counseling at school, she wasn't aware of any other issues that her pseudo-sibling was currently going through.

"Look." Tatsumaki then spoke up. "This might be the only time that I'll get a chance to do this. But I wanted to talk to you before I'm gone for good. I suspect that I'll only be able to move around like this one or two more times before my consciousness is completely merged with Midorya's."

"What do you mean?"

"Fubuki...I'm sorry." The elder sibling said.

"What?" Okay, on the list of things that Fubuki never thought that she would hear in her entire life, that was certainly on the top of list. Her sister never apologized. For anything….

"I know that I wasn't the best sister to you growing up. My memories are still a little fuzzy, but looking back I could've treated you a lot better. I spent most of our time together being way too controlling and overprotective. Which wasn't good for either of us. And all it took was me apparently dying to realize that."

Fubuki wasn't an emotional person by nature. She was normally very calm and controlled. But hearing those words were enough to cause a few tears to well up in her emerald green eyes. Tatsumaki was right. Their relationship was far from perfect. And at times Fubuki hated her sister for pushing her so hard. But deep down she knew it was out of love more than anything.

"Onee-chan…"

"I just wanted to get that off my chest."

"I don't know what to say…"

"There really isn't anything to say. Just know that I'm sorry for the way I treated you. And that I'm proud of how you've turned out. You're an amazing hero and I'm sure that you'll continue to do great things."

"T-thank you." The younger sibling said with a wobbly grin while trying to hold back her tears.

"Alright! Now that we got that awkward nonsense out of the way, the two of us have some catching up to do." Tatsumaki clapped her hands together and smiled.

"Wait!" Fubuki protested. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this. How exactly are you able to do this? And what did you mean that you and Izuku were going to be merging personalities?"

"We live in a world where people can fly, breath underwater, change the weather and run faster than the speed of sound. This really shouldn't be all that surprising. And to clarify, our minds are becoming one. The only way that I've been able to hold on for so long is because I have a stronger will than him."

"Is there any chance that you can talk to him, maybe help him out?"

"He's doing a pretty decent job so far, so I don't see the point in coddling him. We can communicate when we're both unconscious, but lately I just haven't felt like it."

"I see." Fubuki nodded her head in understanding.

"Don't worry, me and the nerd are gonna have a long overdue conversation before I'm gone. I just wanted to take advantage of my limited freedom for the time being."

"I guess that makes sense."

"Hmph...of course it does." Tatsumaki replied before standing up and walking to the other side of the room. "Now, I know you keep some booze stored away in here somewhere. I hate drinking but this time I'll make an exception on account of me being dead and all."

"Wait, onee-chan! Izuku's still underage. You can't get drunk in his body!"

"Oh...good point." The elder sibling retorted.

'_Why do I have a feeling that this is going to be a long night?'_

* * *

**A/N: Not really a whole lot say about this chapter. I know I breezed through quite a bit of stuff, but I really just wanted to fast forward to the work studies. So sorry if the date was a little underwhelming. **

**The work studies are in full swing next chapter, along with a short little training scene. I've been holding off on introducing Lily's quirk for the entire story so far and I think you guys will get a kick out of what is (Especially you Black Clover fans out there). So I hope you all enjoy it. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to drop a comment/review!**


	40. Joyride

Just as they were told the day before, Tokage and Yanagi were up bright and early to ensure that they made it to the basement in time for morning training. They still had a couple of hours before sunrise. But their excitement more than made up for the limited amount of sleep than they were used to. The only real consolation prize to all of this is that they didn't have to worry about going to class today.

"I wonder what kind of training they're gonna have us do today." Yanagi wondered in her usual stoic tone.

"Fubuki probably just wants to get a good baseline on our skills before heading out today. Edgeshot did the same thing on the first day of our last internship." Tokage replied after a quick yawn.

As the two teens stepped out of the elevator and walked through the hallway, it only took them a few seconds before locating the door to their destination. Right before the girls were about to set foot out of the corridor into the room, they both heard the familiar voices of Katsuragi and Midoriya from around the corner.

"...it really wasn't that big of a deal. Honestly, I came across him and Air-Jet completely by accident." The voice of Katsuragi said with a quick laugh.

"Really? Well, I guess it was a lucky break then." Midoriya chuckled.

'_I wonder what those two are talking about.'_ Tokage and Yanagi thought simultaneously.

"Just be glad that you missed the media firestorm that came after. Once it went public, there were reporters camping outside the building trying to get me to do an interview. It was a total hassle."

"I wouldn't doubt it."

"_They must be talking about that whole Stain thing."_ Tokage whispered to her friend.

"That wasn't even the worst part. My parents ended up coming down here and raised all sorts of hell. Just be glad that you weren't here for that." The green haired heroine then joked.

"Oh yeah, I never did ask you what your parents were like. I feel like I'm going to have to meet them at some point." Midoriya asked.

"They're...some _interesting_ people." Even though the two students couldn't see her face, they could definitely hear the sudden uneasiness in her voice. "I'm still trying to figure how I'm going to break the news to them. I mean, how exactly am I supposed to explain that some boy they never met is in possession of their daughter's quirk. _And_ that we're all technically related now."

You could almost hear the record scratch in Tokage and Yanagi's heads after that statement. Okay, something was weird about this conversation. That much was clear. And for multiple reasons. What exactly did she mean by Midoriya being in possession of their daughter's quirk. And how exactly were they related? Sure they looked similar and had identical quirks, but that was just a coincidence...right?

"_We shouldn't be eavesdropping on them like this."_ Yanagi whispered to Tokage, only for the green haired girl to place her hand over the '_poltergeist'_ user's mouth.

"Well, I'm sure they can't be that bad." Midoriya countered the woman's declaration.

"I never did tell you this, but I come from a rather...high class background. And when it comes to people like that, things can get a little...crazy. Especially when it comes to children."

"What do you mean?"

"You've heard of quirk breeding before, right? It's a pretty common practice, even nowadays."

All three teenagers paused at the same time. Of course they've heard of quirk breeding before, who hadn't? Arranged unions by carefully selected donors with the sole purpose of choosing or enhancing a specific quirk or set of quirks. Although the practice was technically illegal, there was no real way to regulate it.

"W-wait...you don't mean…" Midoriya slightly shuddered.

"Yeah…" Katsuragi nodded. "My parents spent a lot of time and money making sure that they had powerful children. I love them and all, but I don't think it's a good idea for you to meet them just yet. I still need to find a way to break the news to them without it becoming a whole spectacle."

All Midoriya could do was nod and agree. "I understand."

"But don't worry, I'm sure they'll like you. And once they see what a fine young man you are they'll be happy to welcome you into the family. I mean, you are technically related to them now that you have onee-chan's cells in your body."

"I guess you're right."

Deciding that continuing to eavesdrop on what was certainly meant to be a private conversation wasn't a good idea, the two girls quickly entered the room to make her presence known. Albeit a bit obnoxiously. Pretending as if they didn't just hear the last part of their talk. However, now that they couldn't erase what they heard from their memories both Tokage and Yanagi had some serious questions about the exact nature of Midoriya and Katsuragi's relationship.

'_I guess this is just one more thing that I'll need to ask him about.'_ The green haired youth thought to herself.

* * *

Before long, all the necessary parties were present and accounted for. Much to the student's surprise, the training room was actually quite big. It was a wide open area that encompassed nearly the entire bottom floor of the building's basement. Whatever they were going to do, it was certainly going to require a lot of space.

"So, what's the plan boss?" Tokage inquired. Presumable speaking for the other two students.

"Just some basic battle training." Katsuragi replied. "I want to see how well you guys handle yourselves in a fight. I got a pretty good assessment of your abilities from your end of semester exams. But I'm curious to see how you've all improved."

"Sounds pretty straightforward." Said Yanagi.

"There has to be more to it than that though, right?" Midoriya looked at his pseudo-sibling.

"Correct!" The woman said with a very suspicious grin. "For this training, the three of you will be facing off against Lily and Ozehana-chan." She then pointed to the two other women in the room. Directing everyone's attention towards them.

Both women were on the floor a few meters away from them, stretching out and getting warmed up. Ozehana was dressed in a pair of orange sweatpants and a black tank-top that helped show off her superior physique. While Lily was wearing a simple black sports bra and leggings.

"Three against two? Doesn't that seem a little unfair?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about us." The '_flame control_' user grinned. "I think the two of us will be quite alright."

"Wait, isn't Lily-san your assistant?" Yanagi asked.

"Lily actually has her hero license. She may prefer doing office work, but she's pretty skilled."

"I only have it for emergencies. I prefer to leave the real hero work to the pros."

'_I never got a chance to learn what her quirk is. She never used it the last time I was here.'_ Midoriya realized. The worst part about this was that there were absolutely no indications as to what her power was. His best guess was that it might be something plant based judging by her nickname and the accessory that she usually wears on her head.

"Alright, I know how these things usually go. What's the catch?" Tokage asked.

"An astute observation, young lady. The rules are as follows. Izuku and Yanagi-san aren't allowed to use any long range attacks. Close combat is where they are the weakest. As for you Tokage-san, you can do as you please."

"And what about them?" The grey haired teen followed up.

"Ozehana-chan doesn't have fire starters on her, so that's her handicap. Lily on the other hand can do as she pleases."

"So you won't be participating?" Said Midoriya.

"Oh no. I'm just going to sit back and observe." Katsuragi responded in a weird tone.

It was blatantly obvious to the young trio that they were being set up. But there wasn't really anything that they could do about it. They may have had the advantage in numbers. On top of that one of their opponents won't be using their quirk. But they would be foolish to take this lightly.

"I'll give you guys a minute to strategize. After that, we'll get started."

"Yes ma'am." Midoriya, Tokage and Yanagi all said in unison before huddling up to go over their attack plan.

-(o)-

"So, what's the plan?" Tokage asked her partners.

"Our best bet is to work with what we already know." Midoriya answered. "Ozehana-san can manipulate fire, but that's useless in this scenario. But with her build she looks like she can handle herself in a fight."

"And we don't have any information on the other one do we?" Yanagi inquired, only to get a negative head shake from the boy.

Tokage then spoke up. "Alright, so here's what I got. My quirk is the best matchup against Ember's since I can cover multiple areas at once. So I'm pretty sure I can handle her on my own. You two have the best chance against flower girl over there, so you can take her on."

"Are you sure?" The boy gave her a concerned look. Sure he was confident in her abilities. But Ozehana was handpicked by Endeavor of all people.

"Totally!"

"Alright." He nodded. "In that case, me and Reiko-san will flank Lily-san on both sides to keep her busy. We can't use long-range attacks, but that doesn't mean that we can't use our quirks on her directly."

"I don't have my support items, but she seems to be within my weight limit. So we definitely stand a chance."

"Hey kids, you done talking yet?! I'm starting to get bored over here!" Ozehana suddenly shouted to them from across the training room.

The three students simply nodded at each other before taking up their fighting stances and giving the all clear. As the two adults sized them up, they had a pretty good idea of what they were going to do. Logically speaking, they would send Tokage after Ozehana but Lily was their main target.

"I can leave the boss' baby brother and the pale one to you, right?"

"It shouldn't be a problem." Lily shrugged nonchalantly.

"Alright, you can start whenever you're ready!" Katsuragi announced from the sideline. She had her cellphone in her hand and was obviously recording the fight. Which only further bolstered the students' suspicion.

With nothing more that was needed to be said, the battle quickly went under way. Like they predicted, the first one to make their move was Tokage. The green haired girl sprinted towards Ozehana at full speed while the other two made their way towards the lavender eyed woman. In mere seconds, the two opposing sides met the other head on.

"You gotta deal with me, Ember! Don't worry, I'll be sure to go easy on you!" Tokage began taunting before launching one of her arms towards the woman's head. Only for Ozehana to dodge it with little effort.

"Oh good, then that means I'll get to relax a bit." The black haired heroine countered by charging at Tokage herself with her fists raised.

On the other end of the equation, Midoriya and Yanagi were quickly upon their opponent. While the boy chose to use his flight advantage and take to the sky, Yanagi covered him by flanking the woman on her left side.

In one split second, the grey haired girl used her quirk to lift Lily's body off of the ground and move her into prime position for Midoriya to follow up with an across the body kick. None of this seemed to phase the woman however, seeing as she kept a very calm expression on her face. Just as the boy's foot was about to make contact, the woman let out a slight smirk.

"**Bone Swing!"**

The moment those words left her mouth, Midoriya and Yanagi's eyes widened at the almost terrifying sight before them. Without any warning, Lily's exposed skin briefly ruptured before several large white protrusions practically exploded from her body. This action was so quick that Midoriya didn't even get the chance to stop before slamming face first into a hardened wall of what felt like solid metal.

"What the-" Yanagi gasped, only narrowly avoiding the attack by throwing herself to the right.

Hoping to quickly recover, Midoriya pulled himself back to get a good look at what just happened. To his surprise, and slight horror, he was now able to see what was going on. From the area where her ribs were supposed to be, four large talon-like objects were sticking out of her body.

"That was a pretty good move. But you're going to have to be faster than that." Lily said in a calm tone.

"What kind of quirk is that?" Yanagi inquired. '_That actually looks kind of cool.'_

"My quirk is '_bone spur'_. I can manipulate the bones in my body to various degrees. In addition to this, my bones are far stronger than a normal person's. It's range is limited, but it gets the job done." The woman announced.

With that brief explanation, Midoriya quickly realized why they were given the handicap by Katsuragi. Close combat fighting was their weak point. And judging by what he just saw, Lily's quirk was perfect for that kind of thing.

'_Well, this isn't going to be easy.'_ He clicked his teeth.

-(o)-

At the other end of the training area, the battle between Tokage and Ozehana was in full swing. Once the two got met in the middle of the floor, the green haired girl was doing her best to avoid a flurry of well aimed punches at her head.

"What are you waiting for, Lizardy? Let's see that quirk of yours in action." The black haired woman taunted with a slight smirk on her face.

"Oh, I was planning on it. I was just trying to see how well you can handle yourself." The girl retorted before activating her power and splitting herself up into twenty pieces and surrounding her opponent. Ozehana suddenly paused at the sight of seeing Tokage's quirk in action. But that moment of hesitation was all that the girl needed to attack. "**Scalestorm!"**

Without missing a beat, the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user launched herself at her opponent from multiple directions. However, she certainly wasn't expecting what happened next.

In a rather stunning display of speed and dexterity, Ozehana quickly lowered herself to the ground and power-slid underneath the girl's body before any one of the pieces could hit her.

'_No way she was able to react that fast.'_ Tokage's floating head looked on in amazement.

Hoping to quickly recover from this, the girl proceeded to launch her pieces at the woman. Leading to a veritable game of "cat and mouse" all across the training area.

-(o)-

"Reiko-san, behind you!" Midoriya shouted just in time for Yanagi to dodge one of Lily's surprise attacks.

By now, the entire fight had been going on for a few minutes with no sign of stopping anytime soon. Like Midoriya had predicted, this was a lot harder than what he originally thought. Despite the clear advantage in overall abilities, the woman was a tough opponent to take down.

Initially, the boy thought that simply using his quirk to throw her against a wall would put her down. But every time either one of them tried that, Lily used her bones to catch herself to lessen the impact. And direct blows were next to impossible since they were liable to get skewered if they got in too close.

'_Her range seems to be limited to about four meters. Even so, it's dangerous to get in too close.'_ Was the conclusion that Midoriya was able to come to so far.

"This would be a lot easier if we could work from a distance." Yanagi said in an uncharacteristically annoyed tone.

"Yeah...but that's kind of the point isn't it?"

"Fubuki-san was right. Short range distances aren't your strong suit." Lily stated in a calm tone. "In that case, I'll just have to use this."

The two teenagers watched as the '_bone spur'_ user extended out her left arm and forced the bone right out of her skin. In terms of visually disturbing quirks, this definitely took the cake. Surpassing even that of Tokage. Once she was done, Lily was now holding what could only be described as a sword-shaped piece of bone in her hand.

"**Bone Spike!"**

'_I'm guessing that she can also regrow bones that she loses. Her quirk is insane! It's almost like Setsuna's.'_

Midoriya and Yanagi didn't even get a chance to think before the woman dashed towards them at an impressive speed and made a slashing attempt at them. At that moment, the lightbulb went off over the girl's head. The weapon that she was holding wasn't attached to her body like the rest have been so far. Meaning that she could easily use it for herself.

"**Heist!"** The '_poltergeist'_ user ripped the object out of her opponent's hand. Once the sword was in her possession, she got into a sloppy "kenjutsu" stance and readied herself to attack. '_Hopefully those tips I got from Musha-san will help me out.'_

"I probably should've thought that one through a bit more." Lily sounded a bit disappointed in herself before assuming a new stance. "**Eternal Fang!"**

-(o)-

At the moment, Tokage was still chasing Ozehana around their section of the training area. The black haired heroine was surprisingly nimble on her feet. Somehow managing to avoid every attack that came her way. Looking to conserve her stamina, the girl decided to give up on the chase and put her body back together.

"You're giving up already? I'm just getting warmed up." Ozehana taunted. Feeling a bit more lively than she was a few minutes ago.

'_I guess I'll have to use my new ultimate move on her.'_ Tokage resolved herself. In battle, there was no time to second guess yourself. If she had any chance at winning this, she was going to need to catch her opponent completely off guard.

With her mind made up, the green haired youth charged at her opponent full speed.

"Really, a frontal attack?" Ozehana tried not to feel insulted at such an obvious feint. Her two years of working under Endeavor taught her not to fall for tricks like these. The woman got into a boxing stance and prepared herself to maneuver out of the way but she wasn't ready for what happened next.

"**Scale Dash!"**

Mere centimeters before making contact, Tokage's body exploded into about forty pieces and breezed past Ozehana's body faster than she could blink. '_She can split herself up that much?!'_ In the time that it took her to process that thought, Tokage had rapidly put herself back together and delivered a resounding backwards kick right into the woman's body. Knocking her onto the ground.

"You like that!" The girl shouted in satisfaction. "I've been working on my speed and precision! It doesn't matter how brawny and muscle bound you are. No one can react that quickly to my attack." She continued with a newfound sense of confidence.

Instantly, the air around Tokage grew stiff.

'_Ah shit…'_ Katsuragi cringed upon hearing her brother's girlfriend's foolish declaration.

"Who the hell…" Without any warning, Ozehana was suddenly back on her feet and closed the distance between the two of them. Except at this particular point in time, the woman was surrounded by an aura of pure intimidation.

***Pow!***

"...are you calling a gorilla cyclops, you brat!" Unfortunately for Tokage, her momentary lapse in judgement was enough for her to be completely unprepared for what could only be described as the most devastating shoulder chop in human history. One that would put even Kendou's best effort to shame.

-(o)-

Across the other end of the room, Midoriya and Yanagi were barely able to avoid a multitude of bone spikes erupting from Lily's body. The sound of the impact to Tokage's shoulder was enough to momentarily distract the two teens, which was a costly mistake.

"Setsuna!" Midoriya shouted.

"**Bone swing!"**

At the exact same moment that Lily made her move, Yanagi used her own quirk to launch the bone sword directly at the woman. Unfortunately, luck wasn't on her side today as the weapon simply bounced off her extended rib and sent it flying in the other direction.

'_Okay, now the kid gloves are off!'_ Midoriya said to himself before flying towards his opponent at high speed. The boy managed to dodge another attack while zooming past the woman's body and catching her off guard.

'_He's fast!'_ Lily had just enough wherewithal to extend the bones out of her spine and send another attack aimed at his chest, but by that point it was already too late.

"**Palace of Inertia!"**

Right away, the woman felt her body freeze in place. Including the bone protrusions sticking out her back and shoulders. This wasn't her first time being on the wrong end of a telekinetic quirk, but this a far different feeling than what she was used to.

"Reiko-san!"

"Got it!" Yanagi responded before once again taking control of the bone-sword and throwing it towards Lily. At the very last second, Midoriya released his quirk and the woman was helpless to avoid getting hit in the face with the blunt side of her own weapon. The force of which was strong enough to knock her down to the ground.

That proved to be the final move of the match before Katsuragi shouted at everyone to stop. "Alright, that's enough! I'd prefer to not have to send anyone to the hospital this morning."

Everyone in the room instantly relaxed, minus Tokage who was still on the ground reeling from that last hit.

"What was that?" Lily directed her attention towards the boy.

"Oh, i-it was just a new move that I learned." The boy answered. "It lets me stop movement within a certain area."

"Huh, I swear I've seen that somewhere before. Did Fubuki-san teach you that?"

"No."

On the other side of the equation, Ozehana decided to have pity on Tokage and help her back onto her feet. "Sorry about that, Tokage-san. I blanked out there for a second. I get kind of sensitive when people comment on my physique." The woman said in an apologetic tone with a bit of blush on her face.

"It's fine. I kinda deserved it for letting my guard down." Tokage gave her a weak grin in return. "Jesus Christ, I don't think I've ever been hit that hard before."

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I guess fighting fires isn't the only thing that you're good at."

"Definitely not."

"Y'know, my mom was actually a firefighter. She used to work near this area before she died on the job."

"Oh...I-I'm sorry to hear that." Ozehana's expression instantly changed after that statement. Her bashful disposition shifted to one that looked a bit dark. Almost apologetic even. The woman looked like she wanted to say something else. But stopped herself before the words could come out.

"That was a pretty good job you three." Katsuragi drew the attention back to her. "Technically I should call that a win for Lily since "_Palace of Inertia"_ could be considered a long range attack. But I'll let it slide this time."

"Sorry about that." Midoriya sheepishly scratched his cheek.

"Obviously you've all improved on your personal abilities. But you would've been better off working together as a group. Tokage-san, confidence is good to have. But don't underestimate your opponents when they have the advantage in battle experience."

"Noted." The green haired girl nodded while tending to her now bruised shoulder...and pride.

"As for you two. You got too caught up in the rules of the fight and let that limit you. Try not to overthink things in the future. The better strategy would have been for you all to get Ozehana-chan and Lily close together. Lily would've been severely limited in her attacks and Ozehana-chan wouldn't have had so much room to work with."

"Understood."

"You're all still kids, so I don't expect you to have all the answers yet. But use this as an example of what to expect when we go out this morning."

"Yes ma'am!"

"Alright, go shower, get breakfast and meet me on the roof in two hours. We have a lot to cover today."

The three students gave a set of mock salutes before taking their leave and making the journey towards their rooms. Inside the training area, the other two heroines couldn't help but notice the odd expression plastered all over the '_flame control'_ user's face.

"You okay Madoka-chan?" Lily asked in a concerned tone.

"Y-yeah, I'm fine!" She waved her hands in front of her face rather unconvincingly before looking back towards the doorway. '_I almost slipped up a minute ago. Now really isn't the best time to tell her. Hopefully I can work up the nerve to confess before she finds out on her own.'_

* * *

"Rescue, battle and evacuation. Those are the three basic duties of a hero." Katsuragi said to the three teenagers as their group flew through the sky above Saitama Prefecture. "Most agencies serve a specific purpose, and use that to filter out the kind of requests that they take on. However, when it comes to rescue heroes like myself it helps to be _proactive_ instead of _reactive_."

"And what do you mean by that?" Midoriya looked to the woman for a response.

"Depending on the type of area that you work in, you have to learn the landscape and possible hotspots for disasters to occur. For example, if we were in a city next to the coastline or a river then flooding and typhoons would be a regular hazzard."

'_Geez, talk about learning as you go.'_ Tokage thought to herself. She knew that work studies were going to be harder than their previous internships. But this was different. During her time with Edgeshot, she felt more like a guest than an actual hero in training. Now, she was more concerned about keeping up with their leader.

"So what should we be on the lookout for here?" Yanagi was the next to speak.

"The entire town is primarily metropolitan and suburban areas. On top of that, we're pretty much the transportation hub of the country. So large scale attacks, earthquakes, and traffic accidents are what I keep my eyes on. There's also the nuclear power plant nearby that every hero agency in the area keeps tabs on." Said the green haired heroine.

"It's also a Monday, so we should probably take that into account too, right? Since there will be more people out and about."

"That's an excellent observation, Lizardy!"

"Thank you." Tokage smiled, feeling slightly proud of herself.

The group continued their aerial observation of the city for the next thirty minutes or so with little to no issue. Despite the abundance of people roaming around, things were relatively quiet. Apparently, there was a lot of empty time in the everyday lives of pro heroes. If nothing was going on, then there was nothing to do. Local heroes typically handled all of the minor incidents around the city. While the specialist just waited for a call to come in.

During this downtime, Katsuragi took it upon herself to make sure that the students paid attention to all of the little things that were easy to miss. Such as weather forecasts, traffic reports and events in the area that would attract large crowds of people. This went on for a good while before the woman's phone began ringing.

"Go for Blizzard."

"_Blizzard-san, we have a situation on the south side of town!"_ The unnamed dispatch employee practically shouted into the phone.

"What's wrong?!"

"_There's a runaway bus heading right towards Sakitama Bridge. You're the closest hero in the area from what we can see. It's gaining speed and the two people inside are ignoring all police commands!"_

"I'm on the way!"

"Sakitama Bridge? That's pretty close." Tokage pointed out, looking in the direction of the specified area.

"We can get there in less than five minutes if we hurry. Alright kids, no time to waste. Let's get a move on!" The '_psychokinetic'_ heroine ordered.

"Yes ma'am!" Without missing a beat, Yanagi whipped out her new hoverboard and Tokage hopped right onto Midoriya's back. In terms of airspeed, she was slowest out of the group and time was obviously a factor. With nothing else that needed to be said, the quartet took off in the direction of the bridge at top speed.

-(o)-

Like Katsuragi had said, the group was near the location in only a few minutes. And from what they could see, they weren't a moment too soon. Down below, they spotted the vehicle in question which was speeding through the road with little regard for anything in sight. Luckily, there weren't a lot of pedestrians on the ground. And traffic was pretty light.

"Stopping that bus is top priority! Me and Skywalker can get if off the street. Lizardy and Emily, grab whoever is inside that thing and be careful!"

"Got it!" The students quickly nodded before splitting off into two teams.

Both groups were quick to catch up to the runaway vehicle and flanked it on either side. On first glance, there was no one inside besides two individuals dressed in all black. Hoping that they would listen to reason, Katsuragi yelled out to them from the open window. "Stop the bus and pull over, this is your only warning!"

"Fuck you, you quirky bitch!" One of the men shouted back.

'_What did he just call her?'_ Midoriya wondered briefly. Now that he thought about it, that was same thing that suicide bomber from before said.

"This bus is rigged to blow in about one minute. If you value your lives, I suggest you get the hell back!" The female driver followed up.

Everyone's eyes widened at that declaration and it suddenly became very clear that the situation was much worse than they thought. Midoriya looked ahead to see that they would be upon the bridge in about the same amount of time. Realistically speaking, there was no way that they would be able to evacuate the area that fast. So their only option was to get the bus as far away from here as possible.

"You three, get the hel-"

"You bastards!" Tokage wasted no time in crashing her body right through the window on the opposite side of the bus to grab the two villains.

"Setsuna-chan!" Yanagi called out to her before removing the strap on her belt and sending five of her mini-disks into the door and shattering the glass.

"What the-"

The two villains inside the bus were obviously not prepared for such a reckless move. And in a rather impressive display of speed both girls landed two simultaneous blows that were strong enough to knock the wind out of them.

"Ghosty, grab that girl!" Tokage then ordered the other before taking hold of the man and pulling him out through the shattered doorway. With Yanagi using her mini-discs to do the same to the other.

'_Whatever works, I guess.'_ Katsuragi took a moment to be impressed before turning her attention towards Midoriya. "Head to the bridge and get ready. It'll be tough, but I can move the bus on my own."

"Got it!" Was the only thing the boy said before flying ahead posting himself above the traffic.

Now that the kids were out of the way, Katsuragi didn't need to worry about their safety. Something like this was well within her weight limit. But there was one problem. There was nowhere for her to safely deposit the bus. The sideroads were a no-go and lifting it up into the air could mean that the blast radius would be that much greater. On top of that, she had maybe thirty seconds at the most to make a decision.

'_I guess I'll have to toss it in the river and hope for the best.'_ She decided before summoning her power and levitating the bus towards the water. Seeing as she didn't have the luxury of time on her side, the woman launched the vehicle into the middle of the river about six hundred meters away from the bridge itself.

'_Shit, that's too close!'_ Midoriya realized only moments before everything went sideways.

***Boom!***

The deafening explosion rang through the area as the bus finally detonated. Sending a pillar of water and mud into the air. It was so loud that Midoriya had to cup his own ears for safety. Somehow, despite the shockwave itself doing enough to stop every car and truck on the road. The vehicles were able to remain on the bridge. Whatever kind of explosives were in that thing, they definitely packed a punch.

"What the hell was that?!" One of the citizens hopped out of their car and frantically shouted.

"Is there a villain attack?"

"Was that a bomb?!"

One of the vital rules of being a hero was making sure that people were calm and didn't start panicking. So Midoriya decided to take care of the job and call out to the people below. "Everything is alright! Please try and remain calm! The situation has been handled so there's no need to worry!"

"A hero?"

"Is that Blizzard?"

"What the hell is going on?!"

Just before the boy could speak to try and further contain the situation, something strange happened.

"**Help!"** A frantic voice suddenly called out to him. Except something was off. Midoriya couldn't really describe it, but it sounded like it was coming from inside his head. What was even more strange was that he instantly knew where it was coming from.

His body practically moved on its own and the green haired youth quickly flew under the bridge to see what was going on. When he finally got a good look at things, he was shocked by what he saw. There in the middle of the water was a man and a small child frantically splashing about.

"Hold on!" The boy shouted then used his quirk to lift the two citizens from out of the river and over to safety.

Once they were on dry land, Midoriya immediately rushed to their aid. Now that he was able to focus, he could see them clearly. The man looked to be about his mom's age with black hair and a mustache. While the other was a small girl with bright red hair.

The closest person to him was the child so that was who he tended to first. "Are you guys alright?" He asked. The little girl briefly looked up at him before a look of fright etched itself onto her face and started to back away.

'_Oh right, I forget that this mask is kind of intimidating.'_ The boy quickly realized what must've startled the girl so bad before removing the object from his head to reveal his face. "Hey, it's alright. I'm not going to hurt you." He then said in a soft tone while giving her an honest smile.

Apparently this was enough to calm the girl down just enough for her to relax a bit.

"_Jean? Jean? Oh my god, there you are!"_ The man shouted in a very noticeable American accent as he ran towards the two of them.

"_Everything is fine sir. Your daughter looks to be okay."_ Midoriya replied in English. Now more thankful than ever that his father took the time to teach him. The man quickly grabbed hold of the child and pulled her into a tight hug while speaking way too fast for him to understand.

"Skywalker, there you are." Midoriya looked above him to see Katsuragi flying towards him with a worried look on her face.

"Onee-chan!"

"What's going on?"

"I think these two were caught up in the blast and got thrown into the river." The boy motioned over to the father and daughter. Katsuragi glanced over at the pair to see that while the man was still holding on to the girl tightly, the child was looking at Midoriya with a set of bright green eyes that were focused solely on him.

"Are you guys alright?"

"We're fine, thank you young man! We were walking under the bridge when that explosion happened. Neither of us can swim and the water was too violent." The man answered her.

"Let's get you two over to the street so you can get out of here." Katsuragi suggested, then proceeded to use her power to levitate the two just off the main road.

"Thanks again, hero. I don't know how you found us in all that water, but I'm grateful."

Midoriya tilted his head in confusion before responding. "Didn't one of you call out to me? I heard someone screaming for help."

Now it was the man's turn to be confused. "Well, it wasn't either of us. I was barely able to keep my head above the water, let alone yell. And my daughter here, Jean, is mute. So she can't even speak."

"Really?" Midoriya then looked at the kid whose face hadn't changed one bit. That was weird, he could've sworn that he heard what sounded like a small child call out to him. Now that he got a better look at her, the girl couldn't have been older than four or five.

"In any case, I suggest that the two of you get far away from here. The main road is backed up but it's safe for you to head down the other street."

"Right, thank you Blizzard. And thanks again to you too young man!" Was all the man said before running in the direction opposite of the bridge.

"Let's go find those other two. Our job here isn't done yet." Katsuragi placed her hand on the boy's left shoulder.

"Right!" He replied by putting his helmet back on his head.

"**Thank you."** The same voice from before once again ringed inside Midorya's head. The boy whipped his head around to see the little redhead girl still staring directly at him despite the distance between the two of them. Was she the one that called out to him? It had to be. How else would he have known where to find them? '_She must have some sort of telepathic quirk.'_

-(o)-

Back with Tokage and Yanagi, the two girls had made quick work of subduing the criminals after taking them off of the bus. Things got kind of dodgy there after the massive explosion. But they were still able to detain the two figures dressed in all black.

"Emily, be careful! We still don't know what their quirks are." Said Tokage while continuing to pin the man against the ground with his hands behind his back.

"I wonder why they haven't used them already." Yanagi wondered out loud as she held the unnamed woman in the air.

"That's because we don't have quirks you damn idiot!" The woman responded in a very irritated tone.

"What?"

"Yeah, yeah...laugh it up while you still can, you bastards. She's right, the two are just a couple of quirkless rejects." The other one said.

They were quirkless, well that certainly explained why they hadn't attacked them yet. There may have been a slight sense of relief at the knowledge that they didn't need to worry about any surprises. But neither one of the two girls were dumb enough to let their guards down.

"What the hell were two thinking anyway? Do you know how many people could've been killed! Do you actually realize what you were about to do?!" Tokage shouted.

"And what of it?!" The woman barked. "You quirky bastards think that you're all so powerful, huh? We may not have any fancy powers. But we don't need them to kill as many of you as we can!"

"You may have foiled our plans today. But our brothers will finish where we have failed. We won't stop until every last of your hellish kind feel the pain that we've felt for so long!"

"These guys are psychotic." Said Yanagi in her usually stoic tone. Despite her calm exterior, the girl shuddered slightly at the wild look on the two criminals' faces.

"Who is "_we"_? Are you part of some type of group or something?" Tokage further questioned. "Is that why you did this? Because you're quirkless? What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

That seemed to be the end of the conversation since neither one of the two criminals decided to respond. Tokage did not have a good feeling about this at all. Something about this didn't sit right with her. These people sounded like a couple of religious zealots instead of your run of the mill villains. Obviously there was something bigger at play here. And her best guest was that their quirkless status had something to do with this.

"There's no point in talking to them." Yanagi interjected. "The police can handle that. We just need to make sure that we can keep them under control before Blizzard and Skywalker get back here."

"Yeah...you're right." Tokage nodded. Still feeling very unsure about what she just heard.

-(o)-

It wasn't long before the group was reunited along with the police. By some miracle, no one was gravely injured in that attack. Thanks to Katsuragi's quick thinking by throwing that bus into the river all of the damage was limited to that one area.

"This was an excellent job you three." The green haired heroine complimented them. "There were no deaths and I think we finally caught a lucky break." She then motoined over to the two quirkless criminals who were now in handcuffs and being put into an armored vehicle.

"Yeah, we got really lucky didn't we?"

"Indeed."

"So what happens now?" Midoriya asked after removing his helmet once again to push his hair back.

"We can worry about filing our reports later. And those two will be taken in for interrogation. There won't be another repeat of last time. So I suspect that we'll be able to get a lot more information this time around."

"Good." Tokage folded her arms with relief. She was still trying to wrap her head around what she heard. Was it possible that they were dealing with some sort of quirkless villain group? It certainly wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

She then looked over to her boyfriend. The image of the way those two criminals looked was still fresh in her mind. They had a fire in their eyes and she could tell that they meant every word of what they said. Was this common amongst quirkless people? Did a lot of them feel like that? More specifically, did Midoriya ever think like that?

The girl quickly shook her head to expel that thought.. That was impossible. Midoriya was way too nice of a guy, especially for something like that. However, one thing she was certain of was the pain in their voice when they admitted that they didn't have quirks. It was the kind of pain that would lead someone to do something crazy.

Tokage then drifted her eyes over to the right side of Midoriya's abdomen. There was still a talk that she needed to have with him about those scars on his body. Unbeknownst to her, she was obvious enough for Yanagi to notice this.

"In the meantime, we have to continue our patrol of the area. Hero work is never done and we have a tight schedule to keep." The teens were brought out of their thoughts by Katsuragi's voice.

"Yes ma'am." Midoriya answered for all three of them.

With that, the quartet continued on about their business for the rest of the day before heading back to the agency and finishing up their work. The students needed to get ready to head back to school tomorrow and Tokage resolved to have that much needed conversation with her boyfriend when they were finally back home.

* * *

_~Somewhere in Japan~_

"Watanabe and Nakamura were unsuccessful in their mission. And they were taken into custody."

"It won't be long before the police catch on to what we're doing. I trust those two to keep quiet, but I'm not getting my hopes up."

"Agreed, we're gonna have to push up our timetable."

"There _is_ one good thing that came out of this though."

"And what is that?"

"We now know that Nitro's new product is a lot more powerful than the last. And we know exactly how much we'll need for our _big operation_."

"I guess it was worth all the extra money, huh?"

"He said that he'll be able to resume manufacturing by the end of this week. Also, he's given us the contact information for a supplier of those quirk bullets that are going around."

"That will help us out a lot."

"Indeed."

"In any case, this was a good test run. I suggest we stay low for a while before we're ready to make our move. There's sure to be a lot of eyes on us very soon."

"Agreed. I'll contact everyone when all of our pieces are in place. Until then, stay under radar and keep finding new members to recruit. We're going to need them for what's to come."

* * *

**A/N: Woah! I bet you guys weren't expecting another update so soon, huh? Well me neither! It's been a while since I wrote an "action" chapter. So I decided to scratch that itch and give you this. Obviously we're going to be moving into the major threat of this story. Which is the quirkless terrorist group. Now that the heroes finally have two of them in custody, a lot of information will be revealed. **

**1\. For those who were wondering, Lily's quirk is based off of the character Zenon from 'Black Clover'. I like his magic so much that I just had to find a way to plug it into the story (Sorry to all you Sister Lily fans out there). Also, if you couldn't tell by now, Ember is based off of Maki Oze from 'Fire Force'. **

**2\. Next chapter is going to be the long awaited talk between Midoriya and Tokage about his problems. It will also be used to reveal the second part of his "origin story". It's going to be a bit emotional and dark. But after we finally get this part of the story out of the way, the mood will lighten up significantly. **

**3\. I've decided that I'm going to do a "raid" like the canon one on the yakuza, so I need help picking out a team. What students/heroes do you all want to take part in it? It can't be anyone who's taking part in the Yakuza raid for obvious reasons. Nor can it be students who didn't get their provisional licenses. Besides that, anyone from 1-A or 1-B is on the table. Hell, even students from other schools could work. **

**Like always, thanks for reading this dumpster fire of a story. And don't be afraid to leave a comment/review. I greatly appreciate all the support and feedback. Writing fics is pretty much how I spend my free time when I'm not working, doing classes or working out.**


	41. Confession

Deep into his slumber, Midoriya once again found himself in the familiar void that he had experienced previously only a few times. Except this time things were slightly different. Unlike before, he wasn't floating around in a miasma of endless darkness. Now, there was a heavy green aura permeating the space that was this bizarre dream realm.

'_This again? I haven't had this dream in a while.'_ The boy thought to himself while trying to get his bearings.

"Hey nerd, I'm over here!" A noticeably irritated voice called out to him.

"Wha-"

Midoriya quickly turned around to face his apparent guest, only to immediately pause at what he was looking at. There, causally floating in the space in front of him was a very familiar face. It was a short woman with curly green hair dressed in a form-fitting black gown with long sleeves and four high-cut leg slits that show off her legs and low-heeled black shoes.

"Tornado?!" The green haired youth shouted in bewilderment.

"No, I'm the fucking Santa Clause. Of course it's me you brat! Has it seriously taken this long for you to piece that together?"

"What is going on?"

"Look...as much as I would love to have a much needed conversation with you, you're about to wake up soon so we don't have a lot of time."

"What do you mean?" He questioned. Even though this was obviously a dream, Midoriya had a feeling that there was a bit more to it. He couldn't quite explain it, but it was like he was having a conversation with a real person. Not just the fabricated image of someone already dead.

"Just shut up and listen." The woman quickly chided. "Because of our current...arrangement, I've been able to watch the world through your eyes. You're not a total lost cause and I'll admit that you have enough potential for me not to feel totally embarrassed about you now having my quirk."

"Thanks?"

"But my main problem with you is that you're too damn soft. I'm not just talking about when it comes to hero work, but in general. You're easily one of the strongest students in your school. But you insist on holding back and acting like you're not at the top of the food chain."

"I'm...not that kind of person." He replied sincerely.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You're as soft as marshmallow fluff. And because of that Baka-gou douche you make it a point not to act like you're better than everyone else. Although I find that kind of thinking absolutely ridiculous, I can somewhat respect it."

"Thank you?" He tilted his head in confusion once again. Was this just her way of complimenting people.

"Look nerd, all I'm going to tell you is that you're gonna need to put your sympathy aside when it comes to real hero work. It's okay to have a kind heart, but don't let that cloud your judgement."

"I understand."

"Good. That's all I have to say for now. The next time we see each other you'd better be ready. Because I plan on shoving my foot all the way up your ass and teaching you a thing or two about how to actually use this quirk." Were the last words that Tatsumaki spoke before disappearing into the darkness.

* * *

Tokage was up bright and early the next day to make sure that she was ready for class. In fact, the girl had woken up half an hour before her alarm for no apparent reason at all. Seeing as going back to bed would've probably been a bad move, she decided to just go about her morning routine as usual.

After showering and brushing her teeth, the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user was chilling out on her bed listening to music and catching up on some of the latest yaoi manga. She was still wondering exactly how she was going to go about her talk with Midoriya later. But she had plenty of time to figure out the right approach.

Suddenly, a knock came from her door. '_Who is that?'_ She wondered. Not feeling the motivation to get out of bed, the green haired teen simply yelled across the room. "It's open!"

Surprisingly, Reiko Yanagi was the one to enter the room. She was slightly hoping that Midoriya would be the one to pay her a visit. Especially since she was in the mood for an early morning make out session before class. But life was never that easy, was it?

"You got a minute?" The grey haired teen asked.

"Yeah, what's up?"

Yanagi took a second to sit down in the T-Rex themed computer chair across the room from Tokage's bed. The girl stayed silent for a moment as she thought about her next words. "You know, don't you?"

"About what?" Tokage tilted her head in confusion.

"About Izuku-kun."

"What about Izuku?"

"I saw you looking at his abdomen yesterday after we dealt with those villains. You didn't really do a good job at hiding it." Was her reply.

The atmosphere of the room quickly changed at that moment. And Tokage's eyes widened briefly at what her stoic classmate was implying. Did Yanagi already know? How? And for how long? It was no secret that her and Midoriya were practically best friends. The two were the "dynamic duo" of 1-B after all.

"What are you t-talking about, Ghosty?" The green haired girl feigned ignorance.

"You know what I mean...his scars."

Seeing as the jig was up, Tokage didn't really see a point in pretending anymore. "So...how long have you known?"

"I found a few days after our internships when the two of us were testing out my first hover-disc. I promised not to tell anyone. So as far I know, the only students who know about it are me and you." Yanagi explained.

"I see." The girl nodded. Naturally she had a lot of questions now running through her mind. But she chose to stick with something easy. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Is he doing anything? I could tell that it's been a while since the last time he did it because none of the scars looked..._fresh_. But I just want to make sure that he's okay."

"I'm really not supposed to tell you this...but he's started seeing Hound Dog for counseling. He's supposed to go every Thursday. And he asked me to cover for him when he's gone."

'_So that's where he was last week.'_ Tokage said to herself. She wondered where he suddenly ran off to after class that day. And Yanagi's explanation of him staying back to talk to Cementoss did seem a bit weird at the time. But at least now all of that made sense.

"Well at least the school knows about it." Which meant that he was getting the help he needed.

"Yes, but Nezu-san, Kan-sensei, Recovery Girl, Midnight-sensei and Hound Dog are the only ones who know."

"Wait, what?!" Tokage nearly shouted. Kayama knew about this? Since when? Obviously she could see why her aunt of all people chose not to tell her. But man was that a shock to the system.

"Yeah…"

"Okay." The green haired girl then said before standing up from her bed. "This is actually perfect. I was planning on talking to Izuku about this today after class. And I think it would be good for you to be there."

"Seriously?" Yanagi questioned.

"Yeah, I can't just sit on this. I _am_ his girlfriend after all. I may not know a lot about this stuff outside of what my sister told me. But I do want him to know that I'm here for him."

Yanagi took a second to think about this plan of hers. Of course, there were a number of reasons why that might not be such a good idea. Mainly because Midoriya had already told her that he wanted to tell Tokage on his own. But now that the secret was out, it was probably for the best that she be there to help keep the tension down. "Alright, I'll help you. He probably won't like it, but I think it's a good idea."

"Thanks, Ghosty! You're the best!" She flashed the grey haired teen a toothy grin. "We can talk more about it later during class. But for now, we need to just play it cool."

"That's fine." The '_poltergeist'_ user simply nodded.

With that, the two girls spent the rest of their morning brainstorming exactly how they were going to have this talk. There were still a few topics that they wanted to discuss. Especially what they overheard between Midoriya and Katsuragi. So this was probably their best chance to lay everything out on the table.

Hopefully, things were going to go over as smoothly as they hoped.

* * *

"Hey check it out. You guys made it onto the news!" Awase loudly announced to the entire room while holding out his cellphone.

"Seriously?" Kaibara asked, quick to pull out his own phone to see if it was true.

The trio's return to class certainly proved to be a lively affair. Especially since their exploits from the day prior had apparently made national news. With their curiosity now piqued, all of the 1-B students were reading through the hero tabloid article in question. One titled: "**Newcomers Make A **_**Splash**_ **To Save The Day!"**. Which was further highlighted by a photo of the three students standing next to Katsuragi.

"Wow, you guys actually stopped one of those bombings, shroom?" Komori asked.

"Nice job you guys." Kendou complimented them.

"Oh wait, here's my favorite part!" Honenuki began chuckling in his seat before clearing his throat and turning towards the others. "Among the rookie heroes was U.A. student, Izuku Midoriya. The young man has not been seen publicly since the events of the Training Camp incident a couple of months ago, but appears to be doing well from what we can see. With the news that the boy is now working under famed rescue hero, Blizzard, rumors have begun circulating about a possible familial relationship between the two. With their similar appearance and identical quirks, many have begun to theorize that Midoriya could be a relative of the Psychic Sisters. But such claims cannot be confirmed at this time." The lipless teen read out loud.

Upon hearing this, Midoriya visibly deflated and drug his hand across his face.

"There, there Izuku." Tokage tried consoling him but did little to hide the amused smirk on her face. "You know tabloid articles only do this to get views. This is why Aunt Nemu said to never read them."

"Yeah...I know."

"Tetsutetsu-kun and Pony made it onto the news this weekend too." Bondo pointed to the two students in question.

"Really, what happened? You didn't tell me about that." Tokage looked to her longtime friend.

"Me, Amajiki and Fatgum busted a group of drug dealers at a festival in Osaka on Saturday night. It was pretty crazy."

"We ended a fight with two gigantic villains. Working with Nejire-senpai, Tsu-chan and Ryukyu-sama was extra exciting!" The horned teen followed up.

"Wow, sounds like you guys are having a blast with your work studies." Shoda said.

"Unfortunately I've decided that doing a work study wouldn't be the best for me right now. I want to focus on my grades for the time being. Taking attention away from academics would be a sin." Shiozaki admitted, albeit a bit bashfully.

"Same." Komori, Kaibara and Shoda agreed.

"Yeah, it makes sense that you guys would jump at the chance seeing as you're all _"A"_ students. Even Juzo and Monoma are doing them." The _'gyrate'_ quirk user said while trying to hide his shame.

"I'm just glad that Snatch agreed to take me on." The lipless teen responded.

"Monoma, you start with Crust this weekend, right?" Tsuburaba then asked the '_copy'_ quirk user.

"Indeed I am!" The boy said with a confident smirk.

"You guys shouldn't let this discourage you though." Kendo told her classmates. "Everyone learns at a different pace. Honestly, I'm lucky that Gunhead agreed to only let me work weekends with him. Otherwise I'd have to take those supplementary lessons with Ectoplasm-sensei."

Before long, Kan entered the classroom and ordered the students to take their seats. "Good job out there for everyone in the work study group. The principal was impressed by how well everyone handled themselves. However, this doesn't mean that you all get to slack off when it comes to school."

"Of course, sensei!"

"Now that we got that out of the way, everyone clear your desks because we're having a pop quiz! I hope you all studied, because today's topic is international hero regulations!"

"Ugh!" The entire class groaned at that announcement.

* * *

It was late into the afternoon by the time Midoriya returned to the 1-B dorms. His counseling session with Hound Dog went a bit longer than usual, but he still had more than enough time to get back to his room and relax. The moment he walked into the building, the first thing he noticed was Monoma, Tsuburaba and Kamakiri sitting in the common area with their textbooks and homework spread out over the table. He gave the three boys a quick wave before immediately heading up to his room and changing out of his uniform.

T-Rex: Hey, you back yet?

Rabbit: Yeah.

T-Rex: Can I come to your room?

Rabbit: Sure

-(o)-

Barely a few minutes later, the inevitable knock came from the boy's bedroom door. When he opened it, he was a bit surprised to see not only Tokage standing there, but Yanagi as well.

"Hey, what's up?" He gave the two an odd look. Mainly because of the uneasy expressions on their faces.

Neither of the girls responded before entering the room and closing the door behind them. Midoriya could practically feel the tension coming off their bodies as they sat down on his bed and computer chair. And he could immediately tell that something was wrong.

"Is everything okay?" The green haired boy questioned. All Tokage and Yanagi did was quickly glance at one another before the grey haired teen began to speak.

"There really isn't any easy way to say this but…she knows." Yanagi motioned over to the boy's girlfriend.

"Knows what?"

"About your…issue."

For a brief few seconds, all Midoriya did was look at the two girls with a perplexed expression on his face before the realization hit him. His head then snapped towards Tokage so fast that you could almost hear the bones in his neck crack. Silence was all that could be heard between the group as Tokage tried to avoid his gaze. More so out of fear than anything.

"H-how…"

"I kinda…saw _them_ when you spent the night in my room a couple of weeks ago." The girl shamefully admitted. "I tried getting a peek at your abs when you were asleep and well…yeah…"

The world around Midoriya suddenly began to spin as the boy tried to figure out what to do. Tokage knew. His girlfriend knew about his scars. That wasn't good, this was definitely not good. He planned to tell her about it eventually, but not like this. He wanted it to be a good moment. Not completely sprung on him out of the blue like this.

Practically able to read the boy's mind thanks to the almost distressed look on his face, Tokage was quick to jump up from her seat and wrap Midoriya into a tight hug. "I'm sorry. I know you didn't want me to find out. And I really shouldn't have done that."

"I-it's umm…." He whispered out. As much as Midoriya wanted to be upset about finding this out, now wasn't a good time. He needed to do damage control and getting angry about this wasn't the right move to make.

"Ghosty already told me that you're not doing..._that_ anymore. But I still just wanted to talk to you about it."

"I see." Midoriya sighed then moved over to his bed.

"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, Izuku-kun." The grey haired teen reassured him.

"No, it's...I actually think it would be good to finally get this off my chest." He replied before looking over to his girlfriend. "So I guess you probably have a lot of questions, huh?"

"Well yeah…." She said. "But you don't have to tell us anything if you don't want to."

Silence then filled the room as all eyes turned back on to Midoriya. Both girls would be lying if they said that they weren't the least bit curious about this themselves. Even Yanagi was still in the dark on most of the details.

"To be honest...I don't really know where to begin. I guess I'll just start with telling you that I'm not cutting anymore. It's been a while since the last time."

"How long is a while?"

"The first week of school."

'_Okay, so it's been more than a few months.'_ That gave Tokage some slight relief. Considering everything that happened in between now and then, she was glad to hear that it had been so long.

"And how long have you been doing it?"

Once again, Midoriya took in another deep breath before explaining. "I can't really remember when I started, but it was sometime around my first year of middle school."

"Why?" Was the million dollar question. She already had a pretty good idea as to why, but Tokage just wanted the confirmation to confirm her fears.

"You guys both know that I was actually born quirkless, right?" He asked, earning the affirmative nods from the two girls. "You know how most people develop their quirks by the time they're four years old? Well, that wasn't the case for me. I only got mine a little over a year ago."

Okay, this wasn't anything new to them. Midoriya had already told them this before.

"I'm sure that I don't need to tell any of you this, but quirkless people are looked down upon by society. Especially in younger generations."

Neither of them bothered giving a verbal answer. It was the sad reality of living in a superhuman society. Sure quirkless people made up twenty percent of the world population, but that number was closer to four percent in Japan. Even then, over ninety-five percent of that consisted of the elderly. In fact, neither of them had ever met a quirkless person so far as they knew before Midoriya.

"Naturally, I was bullied a lot because I didn't have a quirk. Almost every single day at school I would get attacked or beaten up because of it." Midoriya continued.

"This happened at school? The teachers didn't know?" Yanagi questioned him, surely the adults had to have known about this.

"Oh no, they definitely knew about it. It's like I said, people don't have a very high opinion of those born without a quirk, that included the school faculty. More often than not, they would just turn a blind eye to it or just write it off completely."

"That's so fucked up." The green haired girl winced. With all of the preaching that goes around about not treating people differently because of their quirks, apparently the rules didn't apply to those without one.

"Yeah...and the worst of it came from Bakugou." He said.

Tokage and Yanagi paused at this announcement. It was no secret that Midoriya wasn't Bakugou's favorite person in the world. The guy gave him a death glare whenever the two just so happened to be in the same room. No one knew what the cause of the bad blood between them was, but now the pieces were starting to come together.

"He used to bully you?"

"Yeah, pretty much every day. We used to be friends when we were younger. But as soon as he got his quirk he started acting like he was better than everyone else. And since I was the only one in school that didn't have a quirk, I was the prime target for him to...practice on."

"And no one stopped him?"

"No... The teachers didn't want him to have any negative marks that would've hindered him from getting into a top hero school. I'm pretty sure they saw his potential and thought that they could somehow benefit from him making it as a pro."

"That's bullshit." Tokage scoffed, folding her arms with indignation. Sure Bakugou was powerful, but calling his quirk "heroic" was a stretch. Flashy and destructive, sure.

However, the boy's words did give them a bit more insight behind what those villains they ran into might have been thinking. They highly doubted that Midoriya was a special case. More than likely, stuff like that was the norm for everyone who wasn't lucky enough to be born with a quirk.

"I'll spare you guys the details of my everyday life, mainly because I'd rather not relive all of that. But eventually, it just got to be too much for me."

"What do you mean by _eventually_?"

"I had a really bad day at school one day. It started out pretty normal, well normal for _me_ at least. But that particular day, Bakugou was in one of his moods and left me in pretty shape. He found out that I still wanted to become a hero even though I didn't have a quirk and wanted me to understand that it was pointless for me to try. To him, me trying to achieve the same dream as him was an insult to his superiority. I'm pretty sure that's the reason why he hated me so much."

"Why am I not surprised?" Tokage huffed in annoyance.

"That guy never did seem like the mentally stable type." Said Yanagi. She had a few of those at her old middle school. It was actually the reason why she found Midoriya so odd at the start of the year. Kids with strong quirks were usually arrogant and overconfident in their abilities.

"Him and his friends ended up leaving me in pretty bad shape. He even torched one of my hero notebooks just for fun. After that, I needed to cool my head off so I decided to take the long way home from school. And that's when I got attacked by the '_Sludge Villain'_."

Both girls' eyes blew open at that, it was a pretty big news story a while ago.

"To make a long story short, he almost got me before All Might just so happened to show up and save me."

"All Might-sensei saved you?"

"Yeah." The boy nodded. "Apparently he was tracking him down and just so happened to show up at the right time."

"There's something I've always been curious about, Izuku-kun." Yanagi suddenly changed topics. "I didn't want to say anything since I don't know the full story. But you don't like All Might-sensei that much, do you?"

"Yeah...I guess you could say that."

"But why?" Now it was Tokage's turn to ask questions. All Might was _the_ number one hero. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't like the guy. Especially if he was the one to save you from getting kidnapped by a villain.

It was then where Midoriya gave them the full rundown on what exactly transpired between the two on the rooftop that day. Needless to say, both girls were shocked by what they heard. Of course there were two sides to every story, but for the number one hero to leave a kid on the top of a building after telling him something so heartbreaking was insane. They were now curious about how many times something like that had happened. Unfortunately for all of them, they still had no idea that Midoriya's memories of that event were altered thanks to All for One.

"I'm not going to pretend that he was wrong. Realistically speaking...he was only telling me something that any responsible adult would in that situation. But at that moment, He might as well have shoved a knife through my chest."

"That's horrible." The green haired girl gripped his hand a bit tighter. Trying to keep herself level-headed.

"After that, my brain kind of went foggy and I found myself wandering the streets. I can't remember exactly how long I was walking around, but eventually I found myself on a random train heading to who knows where."

"And then what happened?"

"I pretty much just ran away from home. I couldn't deal with my life anymore. And after that talk with All Might, I just needed to get away from everything."

Tokage's vision was starting to get blurry as tears began welling up in her eyes. She may have already known about it, but listening to him admit it was just so much worse.

"I was wandering the streets for about two weeks from what I can remember. I spent most of the time just drifting from place to place before eventually winding up in the middle of Saitama Prefecture." He explained, deciding to leave out the part about the events that happened in between.

"And that's when we ran into each other?" It was more of a statement from Tokage than an actual question.

"Yeah." He nodded. "Things are still kind of hazy on how I ended up there. But by that time I had been moving around the city for a while."

"You two met before?" Yanagi gave them a curious look.

"Yeah." Tokage answered. "I was on the way home from school and just so happened to run into him. He was passed out in an alleyway and covered in dirt."

"Shit…"

"After I uh...left, I wandered around for another couple of days before finding the orphanage where Unohana-san and the others live. T-this is kind of embarrassing to say, but I was rummaging through their trash one night when he spotted me."

"Seriously?"

"Mhmm." He hummed. "Him and Kosai-san decided to help me out so they let me stay there for a couple of days. That's pretty much the reason why I help out there all the time. To pay them back for what they did for me. It's actually kind of funny, of all the places I could've stumbled upon a home for quirkless kids was pretty unlikely."

"Yeah, talk about a lucky break."

"It was actually really nice. That was the first time in my life that I could actually be around people who understood what I was going through. Everyone there was really nice and I felt safe being there."

"That's understandable."

The conversation continued on like this for the better part of thirty minutes as Midoriya told them the rest of the story. How he and Unohana quickly became good friends. How they talked about their lives and the unhealthy way of how they learned to cope with their stress. Truly, it was the first time in a while where he was comfortable being around people without having to constantly look over his shoulder.

"Wait, but you already had your quirk by then." Tokage then said, slightly confused about this entire timeline of events.

"You're right." He nodded. "I kept it a secret from them because I didn't know what they would think of me. Pus, I had no clue how to use it at that time so I avoided it. Actually, the first time it manifested was that day we met."

"Wow."

"Eventually I decided to go back home to my mom. Needless to say, it wasn't the most pleasant of reunions."

"I wouldn't doubt it." Tokage gave him a weak grin. She didn't know a lot about Inko outside of what he told her. But the woman did seem like the overly emotional type. Then again, any mother would be if their child suddenly disappeared for an entire month.

"We kinda got off topic here, but yeah. That's pretty much it. After coming back home, I told my mom about everything that happened and about my cutting. It got really awkward around the house and to be honest things haven't been particularly good between me and her since then. But me and my parents agreed to pull me out of school and I did home-schooling to make sure that I was away from everything."

"I say you should've gone back to that hellhole and showed everyone who's boss. Especially Bakugou, we all know that you're stronger than him so you would've been more than justified to put him in his place!" Tokage slammed her fist into her open palm. If there was one thing she hated, it was a bully who had no business terrorizing others. She had to deal with a bit of that herself in school. But not nearly to the level that Midoriya did.

"I couldn't." Midoriya shook his head. "That just would've caused too many problems. Plus, the last person I wanted to see was him."

"I guess you lucked out when your quirk finally developed, then. Still, it's amazing that you're as nice as you are now." Yanagi said to him. "To be honest, if I were in your shoes I wouldn't have had that much self control."

"Well, I'm just not that kind of person. The last thing I want is to start acting like the people who hurt me. It wouldn't be right."

"I can agree with that." Tokage looked at him and smiled. She was happy that he was finally telling her all of this. She had only been given small pieces here and there. But now that they had the full picture, she had a new level of respect for him. To be fair, Midoriya had more than enough reason to hate the entire world.

"Since we're on the subject of quirks…" Yanagi spoke up with a skeptical look in her single blue eye. Moving on to the main reason why she wanted to have this talk. "There's something else that we wanted to talk to you about."

"And what's that?" Midoriya asked.

The two girls glanced over at one another for a brief moment before Tokage decided that she should be the one to start the conversation. "Well…" The girl awkwardly grinned and rubbed her hands together. "The other day when we were all at the agency, we sorta kinda overheard you and Fubuki…talking."

If Tokage's mannerisms were anything to go, Midoriya knew that whatever it was that she was referring to had to be important. "About what?"

"Your quirk." Yanagi flatly stated. "More specifically, something about you being in possession of her sister's quirk and that the two of you were actually related."

"What?"

"Yeah…"

Now it was Midoriya's turn to once again dawn an uneasy look on his face. For what seemed like the next few minutes the boy thought about exactly what he should say. It was already bad enough that he just got done recanting his entire life story. But now he was going to have to figure out a way out of this.

The more he thought about it, the more he started to wonder. Would telling them really be so bad? It wasn't like he couldn't trust either of them. Quite the opposite actually. After another few seconds of contemplation, Midoriya took in a dramatic breath and gave the both of them a slight smile.

"Well…that's a bit complicated." He started. "It's not like it's a secret or anything exactly. I-it's just…hard to explain."

"What do you mean?" Tokage asked him.

"Don't tell me that the two of you really are siblings." The '_poltergeist'_ user gave him a skeptical look.

Was it possible that Honenuki and Awase were right after all? Was Midoriya actually the 'Psychic Sisters' secret younger brother? Or at the very least a close family relative. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility. But considering what they overheard that day, there had to be more to it than that.

All Midoriya did was look at the two of them before letting out a sigh. "Okay, so here's the thing about that..."

-(o)-

_~Twenty Minutes Later~_

"So that's pretty much it." Said Midoriya, finally done talking after his rather lengthy explanation.

Across from him, the two girls were busy trying to piece their sanity back together. They really didn't know what they were expecting to hear. But what they got definitely took a minute to process.

"Well shit….That's…actually, I don't even know what to say about that." Yanagi was the first to speak.

"It's a lot to take in, isn't it?" Midoriya shakily replied with a wobbly grin.

"Okay, so let's make sure that I have this right." Tokage started while rubbing the sides of her head and looking him right in the eyes. "You were born quirkless. Honest to goodness, no bullshit, one hundred percent bonafide quirkless."

"Yes."

"And after you ran away from home, before running into me that day in the alley you were kidnapped by the villain boss that All Might fought during the rescue. All for One."

"Yes."

"It was actually more like I tried to break into his house to get out of the rain and he caught me."

"Irrelevant." The green haired girl quipped. "And after running into him, he brought you in for tea and talked to you for hours about quirks and random bullshit."

"That is correct."

"And this villain has the power to take, use and give away quirks at will." Yanagi continued.

"Yes."

"So after this lovely chat of yours, he for some reason decided to give you Tornado's quirk because he couldn't use it and thought that you'd be perfect for it."

"As far as I know."

"Which explains why you were one of the targets for the attack back at the camp. His plan was to eventually capture you when he needed you and turn you into one of his henchmen."

"You guys are doing great so far."

"Okay, we can come back to that later." Tokage interjected. There was already enough that they needed to work through before opening up that specific can of worms. "So after giving you Tornado's quirk, he fucked with your memory and transported you to Saitama Prefecture a few days before you ran into me."

"Things are still a bit hazy on that part. But I'm pretty sure that I was only with him for a day."

"So Tornado is actually dead and _you_ are in possession of _her_ quirk. You're not actually Fubuki-san's brother."

"_Technically speaking…no. But Izuku does have my sister's cells in his body. So far all intents and purposes, we are related."_ The voice of Katsuragi spoke from the video chat on Midoriya's laptop. A few minutes into his explanation he decided that it was best to call her so that she could corroborate his story. "_I know this is a lot for you two to take in, but we are telling you the truth."_

"Oh no, we definitely believe you." Tokage replied to the woman.

"Yes, Izuku-kun is a pretty terrible liar. He couldn't come up with something this elaborate and say it all with a straight face."

Midoriya wanted to feel offended at Yanagi's words, but it was pretty hard considering it was the truth.

After pacing around the room for a bit, Tokage took a moment to move over to Midoriya's bed and prop herself up against his shoulder. Mainly because she needed something to relax on to help her brain cool off. But also because she just felt like being close to him right now. After all, it wasn't everyday that your entire perception of the very understanding of quirks and science was suddenly flipped on its head in a matter of minutes.

"You guys are actually taking this a lot better than I thought you would." Midoriya slightly chuckled.

"Oh don't worry, my brain already fried during the whole '_plus-alpha cell_' transfer explanation."

"My grandfather always says that reality is often stranger than fiction. I guess this is what he was referring to." Yanagi commented.

"_I'm actually surprised that you two are only finding out about it now. I thought that Izuku would've told you a while ago."_ Said Katsuragi.

"Y-yeah well, there wasn't really a good way for me to bring it up." The boy laughed.

"Izuku, don't take this the wrong way, but your life sounds like the plotline of an overly complicated yet surprisingly well written manga series." Tokage deadpanned.

'_Or some train wreck of a fanfiction written by a guy with no social life.'_ The grey haired girl thought to herself.

"_Well, as much fun as this was I have to get going. I have some business that I need to attend to. I'm probably going to be calling the three of you in soon, so be ready for that."_

"No problem boss lady!" Tokage gave a half-hearted wave to the screen.

"We'll see you later, Onee-chan." Midoriya also gave a wave before the screen went black.

Now that all of that nonsense was out of the way, Yanagi decided that now was a good time for her to take her leave. The grey haired teen still had some homework that she needed to finish, along with an episode of her favorite isekai series dropping soon. So she bid the two greenettes farewell. Leaving the young couple to have some alone time.

"Hey." The girl sat up and faced him.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry for trying to take a peek at you while you were asleep. I know there's no real excuse for that. But I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry."

"It's fine, I'm not upset over that at all." Midoriya waved his hands in front of him.

"No, no, there's no reason for you to forgive me. It was wrong and I shouldn't have done it. But I'm glad that you still trust me enough to tell me all of that."

"Setsuna it's fine, I promise."

"That is why I'm going to make it up to you right now!" The girl announced with a very obvious smirk before standing up facing him. Dramatically changing the atmosphere of the conversation. If anything, the girl needed something to relieve the tension in the room.

"What do you-" The boy didn't even get a chance to finish that statement before Tokage abruptly lifted the bottom of her triceratops themed t-shirt. Only getting as far as her ribcage before Midoriya let out a small shriek. "S-S-S-Setsuna, what are you doing?!"

"To make up for it, I'm going to let you touch my boobs!"

"W-what?!" A now red-faced Midoriya shouted in complete astonishment.

"Was that not good enough?" The girl continued smirking. "I guess I could take my bra off too if you think that will be fair."

"S-stop!" The boy continued to sputter out while covering his eyes out of embarrassment. He already knew that his girlfriend wasn't the most conservative person on the planet. But this was definitely a jump from the regular shenanigans.

"Oh no~." Tokage gasped dramatically and cupped her own cheek. "Don't tell me. You don't want to look at my body, do you? Wow Izuku, that hurts. My own boyfriend doesn't even want to cop a feel because he's so disappointed in my actions. Or is that you're not into me on a physical level?"

"T-that's n-n-not it all!" He replied hastily. "I think y-y-you have a r-really nice body."

"Oh, do you now?" Her predatory smirk grew even wider. This was way too easy. "So why don't have a look and prove it?"

"I can't do that right no- umph!"

The next thing the boy felt was Tokage put all her weight on top of him before falling backwards onto the bed. Despite his best effort, the girl had no trouble removing his hands from his face and planting a kiss on his lips.

"I'm sorry babe, but I just needed something to relieve the tension a bit."

"And that was your first choice?"

"Of course it was." She smiled and planted another peck on his cheek. "Besides…you should really be used to this by now."

"I honestly don't think I'll ever get used to that." He replied.

"It's cool, we have plenty of time to work on it." Tokage stated before continuing. "But seriously, I'm sorry for doing that. I'll find a way to make it up to you."

"It's fine, really. I'm actually really glad that I could finally get that off my chest. I felt pretty bad for keeping it a secret."

The two were silent for a few seconds as they gazed into each other's eyes. In all honesty, it was like a weight was lifted off the boy's shoulders.

"Since we're on the subject…" The girl began walking her finger up his chest. "You actually have a _really_ nice body. Shame on you for hiding such a wonderful treasure from me this whole time. And those scars do give you kind of a rugged, bad-boy look."

"Well t-thank you." He smiled awkwardly. He knew exactly what she was trying to do. And it was nice knowing that his girlfriend was making an effort to let him know that she didn't mind.

Before he could say anything else, Tokage detached her left hand from her arm and sent it across the room to lock the door. "Y'know lover-boy, I really like that whole "making out in the air" thing we did the other night. It was pretty hot."

"Oh…really?"

"Yeah, and that started giving me some ideas. Ideas that I'm in the mood to try out right now~." The girl's tone was sultry and smooth. The next thing that happened was Tokage detaching her head and arms from her torso.

"A-and what ideas are those?"

"Oh…you're about to find out~. Don't worry, I promise to keep things slightly below an "R" rating."

All Midoriya could do was gulp at whatever possible scheme the girl had inside her head right now. "J-just promise to go easy on me."

"_Not…a…chance…"_

* * *

_~A few days later~_

It wasn't until the end of the week that Midoriya, Tokage and Yanagi had gotten a text message from Katsuragi telling them to meet her police headquarters in Tokyo. The woman was rather vague about the reason why. But the students pretty much assumed that it had something to do with what happened earlier in the week.

"Hey, where are you guys headed off too?" Honenuki asked the trio while also making his way out the door.

"Fubuki called us in. We're going to Tokyo." Tokage told him.

"Really? Me too!" Said the lipless teen. "Snatch told me to meet him at police headquarters."

"That's also where we're going." Yanagi spoke up.

"That can't be a coincidence." Midoriya wondered out loud, seemingly voicing the others thoughts.

The quartet of 1-B students made it all the way to the front gate before encountering a familiar face.

"Greetings." Fumikage Tokoyami said to them with a slight bow.

"What's up Bird-Man, how's it going?!" Tokage greeted him with a friendly wave. Tokoyami gave her a confused glance before Yanagi decided to clarify the misunderstanding.

"She likes making nicknames for people, don't pay too much attention to it."

"I see." The '_dark shadow'_ quirk user nodded.

"Did you get called in for a work study too, Tokoyami-san?" Midoriya questioned. "You said that you're working with Hawks, right?"

"That is correct. I know not the reason why, but I am to meet him at police headquarters in Tokyo for some sort of briefing."

All four of the 1-B students shared a couple of curious looks with one another before telling the raven headed teen that they were also going to the same place. It became apparent to them that whatever was going on, it must have been pretty big. Especially if the soon-to-be number two hero was involved.

Deciding not to waste any more time, the group of students all made their way over to the train station. For the most part they just chatted about regular school related topics. But Midoriya took the opportunity to ask something that had been on his mind for a while.

"So Tokoyami-san, what's it like in 1-A?" The green haired boy asked.

"It's been rather hectic in recent weeks due to my classmates having to take part in make up classes for the provisional license exam. But aside from that, nothing of note has come up recently." The emo teen replied.

"Your teacher seems like a real hardass compared to Kan-sensei. I bet he wasn't too happy that half of your class failed." Tokage said in a slightly amused tone.

"Indeed. Aizawa-sensei has been pushing the remedial students rather hard in preparation for their upcoming trial. Especially Shinsou-san since he's still further behind in his studies as opposed to the rest of the class."

"Sucks to hear that." Honenuki chimed in. "Hopefully the rest of them can pass this time around."

"I agree."

The group continued talking amongst themselves as they enjoyed the rest of the train ride. And before they knew it, the mob of students finally made their way to their destination. After checking in at the reception desk one of the on-duty cops led everyone to the main conference room. There they were all suddenly greeted with the sight of all of their mentors. Katsuragi, Ozehana, Hawks, Edgeshot and Snatch along with a few notable local and regional heroes. Even Kayama was amongst their ranks.

"Aunt Nemuri? What the hell are you doing here?" Tokage asked.

"Setsuna, I wasn't expecting to see you here." The "R-Rated" heroine said with an equally surprised tone. "I got called in this morning. Apparently there's supposed to be some sort of mission briefing."

"Does anyone else feel out of place?" Yanagi continued looking around the room.

"Oh good, you guys made it in time." Katsuragi then greeted the students.

"What's going on?" Midoriya looked to her.

"We'll go over all the details during the meeting. But it has to do with what happened this weekend."

After a few minutes of brief introductions, the main door to the conference room opened up and drew everyone's attention. The heroes and students glanced over to see a tall man with black hair and brown eyes dressed in an expensive looking grey suit. And without saying a word, he made his way over to the front of the room.

"Welcome everyone, I'm Chief Detective Yoshiko Watanabe. We'll have to save the pleasantries for later. We have much to discuss…"

* * *

**A/N: Guys I swear, I'm trying to keep these chapters as short as possible. But for some reason I always end up going over 5000 words. The next few chapters are going to be long because of the build up. But after that they should be shorter. **

**1\. So yeah, here's our quad for the raid team. Everyone pretty much suggested Honenuki and Tokoyami, so of course they'd be there. And I decided to throw Midnight into the mix because it made sense for what I have planned. Shiozaki and Monoma were going to be in the mix, but I'm saving those two for later in the story. (If you couldn't already tell, I've been teasing Monoma quite a bit so far.)**

**2\. Someone suggested this to me in the comments, but the quirkless organization doesn't have an official title. If you guys have any suggestions that I could work with, I'd be more than willing to listen. I plan on them having a name by the next chapter.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review. **


	42. Derelicta

"As you all know, for the past few months there have been numerous bombings and acts of terrorism around the country." Detective Watanabe began the mission briefing. "And after months of investigation, we finally have a lead on the group responsible."

"So, what are we dealing with?" Said Hawks, the current number three hero in a rather nonchalant tone of voice.

"Thanks to Blizzard and her team, we were able to capture and interrogate two members of this group. Although they have no official title, the organization is operating under the name "_Derelicta"_."

"Derelicta?" Kayama raised her eyebrow at this.

"It's a Latin word meaning _forsaken_ or _deserted_." Yanagi then stated, earning quite a few curious looks towards her. "I know a lot of random internet trivia..."

"That is exactly correct." The detective acknowledged. "From the information that we have been able to obtain so far, they're an organization comprised entirely of quirkless citizens whose main goal is nothing but pure destruction and chaos."

Almost instantly Midoriya's eyes widened at that announcement. An organization of quirkless people was behind this? Did he hear that right? No, he couldn't have.

"Did you say _quirkless_?" Now it was Snatch's turn to speak up.

"Yes, I did."

"So what's the deal? What are their motives? Are they truly the ones responsible for all these attacks?"

"I'll answer all of your questions in time, Midnight. But let's go down the list from what we know." The man in the grey suit then directed everyone's attention towards the projector screen. On it, were the mugshots of the two criminals that Midoriya's group captured during the bridge incident last week.

"After hours of interrogations, the two individuals you see before you ended up giving us a wealth of information on how the group operates."

Everyone in the room suddenly became quiet and now all of the focus was trained directly on the man.

"'_Derelicta'_ was formed about nine months ago near east Tokyo. Since then, they've been able to grow their ranks and expand their sphere of influence around the country. There isn't an exact number that we could come up with, but their group is believed to be around ninety members strong."

"So they're definitely not some small time gang"

"Yes."

"And who's running this show?" Hawks asked.

"He simply goes by the name "Rogue". Like most members of this group, their true identities are kept secret. Even their actual gender couldn't be verified. However we have learned that he has access to a considerable amount of money and resources."

"So what's the game here? Why are they doing all of this?" Ozehana questioned.

The detective then pressed a button on the computer and the group watched as one of the videos on screen began playing. It was footage of the previously captured woman in the interrogation room. Now that she had a better look at her, Tokage noticed that the woman didn't look much older than her.

"_You wanna know why we do this, huh? Well that's pretty damn simple...you quirky bastard. We want revenge. It's because people like you think they can just walk all over people like us! All our lives we've been stepped on and treated as less than human and we're sick of it! We already know that we're a dying breed and that quirkless people will soon be gone and forgotten. But before that day comes, why not make the lives of you and your kind as hard as possible, huh? The answer's simple, death and destruction! We just wanna cause as much chaos and pain for your mutant breed as we can. Nothing more, nothing less!"_

"Jesus Christ…" Tokage shuddered slightly in her seat. The girl's eyes then shifted over to Midoriya who had been pretty quiet so far. Even from where she was sitting, it didn't take a mind reading quirk to guess what the boy was thinking.

As for Midoriya himself, the boy was still trying to process all of this.

"Pretty much all of the footage is the same in this regard. And the other individual that was captured was the exact same way. We're dealing with a group of individuals who feel as though they've been scorned by society and that this was their best option to vent their frustrations. Simply put, their goal is to kill as many people as possible. Especially those who happen to possess quirks."

"Pretty cut and dry, huh?" The winged hero quipped. '_Great, first a quirk supremacist group and now an anti-quirk group. Things sure are getting interesting these days aren't they?'_

"And we have no knowledge on the other members?" One of the local heroes raised his hand. "I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't know the people that they were operating with."

"This group is surprisingly good at covering their tracks and staying under the radar." Katsuragi answered. "They know how to move and it's not like we can just narrow down the search to quirkless people across the country. After all, Japan alone has a little over five million of them within the country."

"But didn't you guys already capture one of these villains and their explosives?" Ozehana looked to Katsuragi and Edgeshot. "I'm not an expert on forensics, but can't the police track down where the explosives came from based on what they're made of?"

"That's a good point. Making explosives from scratch isn't easy. And if they're not using quirks to create them, then shouldn't there be some kind of trail to follow?" Snatch echoed.

"And are they making these themselves or is there a supplier?"

The group of students were now having a hard time keeping up with the line of questioning. Was this what normal mission briefings were like? They were barely a few minutes in and a ton of information was already flying around. To be honest, they felt like they should be taking notes.

"To answer your question, we were able to confirm that there is a single supplier of the explosive that the group has been using up until this point. On top of that, they've recently developed a newer version that is considerably stronger."

"I take it there's a bit more to it than that." Said Snatch.

"Edgeshot, Blizzard." Watanabe turned the floor over to them.

"From the early investigation reports that we were working on, this isn't your ordinary backyard science project. Not only is it hard to figure out what it's actually made of, the stuff is over four times stronger than dynamite and is virtually undetectable." The masked hero explained.

"Yes." Katsuragi nodded. "Whoever the supplier is, they're an expert in chemical science. Even the forensics lab in Kyoto couldn't figure the stuff out."

"So who's the supplier?" Midoriya finally spoke up for the first time.

The detective once again directed their attention towards the projector and brought up an image of a black silhouette with bullet points beside it. "His name is Nitro."

"Pretty on the nose, isn't it?"

"Of course we don't know what his real identity is. But surprisingly, he isn't an actual member of '_Derelicta'_. And no one within the group has ever seen his face. He acts strictly as the manufacturer and supplier. The only information that we have on him is that he is also quirkless, male, somewhere in his late teens or early twenties, recently moved locations and has access to a lot of resources."

"Well that could be anybody." Said Honenuki.

"What's his deal?" Take raised her hand. "If he's not a member then why is he helping them?"

"Money, from what we can gather. He charges a pretty penny for his services. Also, he has recently developed a new product that is a lot more lethal than what has been used up until now."

"Another problem to add to the list." Snatch shook his head.

"So...we have a group of decently connected and disgruntled quirkless people who have an axe to grind with society. Not only are they well equipped, they have a lot of people working for them." Hawks began.

"Do we know when their next attack is going to be?" Midnight then asked.

"The two villains that we captured had no knowledge of any future attacks. Apparently, they had no motivation to learn about that since they didn't plan on being alive right now."

That was another thing about this '_Derelicta'_ group. They were willing to commit suicide attacks on a massive scale. Although the numbers were still a bitch sketchy, the heroes and police did know that the majority of their attacks were done in that way.

"This group has also been ramping up their recruitment efforts over the last couple of months. They've been especially interested in targeting young people around the country. Especially around high school and college age."

"So this "Rogue" character preys on quirkless teenagers who no doubtedbly have had a hard life and convinces them to throw their lives away for his cause."

"What a depraved individual." Edgeshot scoffed.

"Sick bastard…" Tokage balled her fist under the table.

As for Midoriya, he knew first hand how easy it would've been to convince young people like him to join a cause like that. In some of his darker moments, he was more than susceptible to being persuaded by someone like this Rogue person. The more they talked about it, the more this '_Derelicta'_ organization sounded like a religious cult as opposed to a network of villains.

"So is there any way to track them down?" Yanagi then spoke up. "They have to have some sort of base of operations, right?"

Detective Watanabe nodded towards the girl before showing the image of an abandoned warehouse somewhere in east Tokyo. "Unfortunately, their group meetings frequently change locations to avoid detection. We don't know the methodology behind how the leaders decide. But members are usually alerted by way of coded emails and text messages a few days beforehand."

"Rather thorough, aren't they?" Said Tokoyami.

"Then shouldn't you be able to access their phone and email records to figure out when the next meeting will be?" Midoriya suggested. He was by no means an expert on technology or detective work, but something like that should be possible.

"We sent in a team to raid the apartments of the two criminals shortly after they were captured. But everything had been destroyed and their electronics were wiped clean. Like Blizzard already said, these people are good at covering their tracks."

"Well that doesn't make this any easier…" Yangai sighed in slight frustration.

"So where do we go from here?" Kayama asked.

"We're going to continue using the information that we have to investigate all possible leads that we've obtained so far. We'll also be bringing in personnel with memory quirks to get more information out of our captives very soon. In the meantime, we asked that everyone here cooperate with our investigation and assist us on tracking down leads. Once we know where and when the next meeting will take place, we'll raid the premises and take down all involved parties."

"I guess that explains why you brought all of us here in particular."

"What do you mean?" Tokoyami looked to Hawks.

"Take a look at everyone in this room right now and think about how we all operate."

The students did exactly that. All around them were heroes with a considerable amount of experience who all specialized in different areas. It took Midoriya all of five seconds to factor in their quirks, fighting styles and track records before coming to a conclusion. "Everyone here has quirks and skillstes that help with stealth, speed, suppression and capture."

"That's right." Katsuragi smiled at the boy.

"Like the boy said, this group was put together with the idea that we could pull off a quick operation with as little noise as possible."

"Makes sense." Honenuki chimed in. "Having people like Endeavor and Mt. Lady with loud and flashy quirks wouldn't do well with something like that."

"Exactly."

"Assuming we can find out where their base of operations is before the next attack, what would be our strategy going in? And what should we expect?" Ozehana asked.

"We can hash out the details as soon as we have a good lay of the land. However, we can expect explosives, weapons and anything of the sort. Since these people don't have quirks, they'll more than likely make up for it with firepower. From what we know, there's no shortage of guns among them."

"Man, this is getting serious, huh?" Honenuki leaned to the side and whispered to Yanagi.

"For now, Edgeshot has agreed to do most of the groundwork. Hawks, you would also be good for this kind of thing."

"Sounds good to me."

"Until then, everyone else will be on standby and wait for word from our department on when we have their location verified.'_Derelicta'_ usually meets at night time so expect the operation to happen late."

"Yes sir!" The group of heroes and police officers said in unison.

* * *

Before long, the meeting came to an end. With their business now concluded, the group of students were waiting together in one of the hallways of the police station and going over everything that they had just learned. However, out of everyone present Midoriya seemed to be most uneasy.

"You okay, Izuku?" Tokage placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah...it's just a lot to take in." He nodded.

"I wouldn't doubt it. Especially for you."

"You're right." Was all he said in response.

The boy was still trying to come to terms with all of this. A quirkless terrorist organization. He definitely wasn't expecting something like that. But what made it even harder for him was that he could sympathize quite well with how they might've felt. It was no secret that quirkless people were treated negatively by society. Even those who managed to overcome their placement in life and make it into high positions had to face discrimination on a daily basis.

All throughout the briefing, there were more than a few times where Midoriya found himself wondering if he would've ended up like them. The boy then looked down at his own hand with a hollowed expression.

'_If I didn't get lucky and end up with Tatsumaki's quirk, I might have been one of them.'_ He quickly shook his head to expel that notion. No, Izuku Midoriya was not like that. Sure he could understand where those people were coming from, but there was no excuse for what they were doing. Even if they felt like they were treated wrong by society, killing people was unacceptable.

"It's okay if you feel sympathetic towards them, Izuku-kun." The voice of Yanagi then brought him out of his thoughts. "You of all people probably know what's going on through their heads better than any of us."

"Ghosty's right."

"I appreciate the sentiment you guys. But what's important is doing what we can to help get these guys off the streets. Honestly, I'm just glad that these people are operating in secret. If word about this got out, then it would only make life for quirkless people that much harder."

"You're right about that."

Before anyone else could speak, Katsuragi, Kayama, Snatch and Hawks came out of the conference room and gathered up all the students.

"How are you guys doing?" The green haired woman shot a worried glance towards Midoriya. She had a feeling that he wasn't doing too well at the moment.

"We're good." Tokage answered for the group.

"To be perfectly frank, we're still on the fence about letting you kids join us on this operation. It's going to be dangerous and we don't need you in any deadweight...for lack of a better word."

"What?!" All five of them looked at Hawks with wide eyes.

"You can't be serious."

"Yeah, you can't just expect us to sit by after learning all of that." Honenuki protested.

"I know it's tough but hear us out." Snatch held up his hand. "_If_ we do let you be a part of this, then you all would only act as a backup squad. We wanted to make sure that all of you understood that."

"Since she's one of your teachers, we thought that it would best for Midnight to make the final decision." Everyone then looked to the "R-Rated" heroine.

"I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have my own concerns. But I'm willing to allow it if you all agree to stay in the rear and let the actual pro's handle the heavy stuff. If anything, you all will only help out with detaining and clean up."

"That does make the most sense." Tokoymai nodded.

"Fine with me." Honenuki told them. The others all nodding in agreement.

"It's settled then, we'll keep our ear to the ground and wait for the call. Until then, you all need to make sure that your skills are razor sharp."

"These kinds of things usually go sideways at any minute, so I suggest that you start training to be prepared. We'll only need you as back up, but that doesn't mean that things won't change." Hawks said nonchalantly with his hands tucked behind his head. For a top hero, this guy was way more chill than what they expected.

"Understood."

"Good." Katsuragi nodded. "We won't be calling you in for a while. Until then, stay next to your phones and be ready. I can already tell you that when we go through with this, it's going to be a long night."

"Yes, ma'am!" The students said with vigor before saying their goodbyes and heading back to the school.

* * *

Upon their return to the school, the students of the newly formed raid team simply went about their business as usual. Which for Tokage, meant an entire afternoon of cuddling and low-budget anime inside of Midoriya's room.

"What's up?" Tetsutetsu greeted Tokage as they passed each other in the hallway.

"You going somewhere, Metalhead?" She asked, noticing that he was in his uniform.

"Yeah, Fatgum called me and Amajiki in for some kind of meeting. I'm heading over to the Nighteye agency right now."

"Cool." The girl simply said. That was a weird coincidence, both of them being called in for a meeting on the same day like this.

"Oh yeah…." The boy suddenly spoke. "My dad just sent me the new "Super Smash Bros." game as a gift for passing the provisional license exam. You wanna play after I get back?"

"Hell yeah I do!" The girl practically cheered. "It's been a while since I kicked your butt in a video game."

"Whatever, you can invite Izuku too." The '_steel'_ quirk user suggested.

"Actually, how about we just keep it to the two of us?"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, of course. We don't hang out as much as we used to and it would be nice to just chill out like normal." She grinned.

To her credit, Tokage was being sincere about her words. Before moving into the dorms, they would hang out together practically all the time. Damn near every weekend to be more specific. But recently she's been spending most of her time with Midoriya. And Tetsutetsu and Awase were pretty much joined at the hip nowadays. It was only natural to want to be with your boyfriend all the time, but it wasn't a good idea to neglect your best friend either.

"Fine with me." The boy shrugged.

"Cool, text me when you get back."

"No problem, make sure you bring some snacks." He replied while making his way down the hall towards the stairs. But not before Tokage decided to have a bit of fun at his expense.

"Oh by the way, we're _definitely_ going to talk about what's going on between you and Kendou when you get back~!" Tokage announced loudly and obnoxiously with an evil grin on her face.

All Tetsustesu did was give the girl a death glare before exiting the hallway. But that did nothing to hide the noticeable amount of redness on the silver haired boy's face. Without so much as a word, he disappeared into the stairwell leaving Tokage feeling pretty satisfied with herself.

'_I don't see why he doesn't just ask me for help? Oh well, maybe that poor fool will grow a spine one of these days.'_ She shrugged before going about her business.

* * *

_~The Next Morning~_

As the early morning light drifted in from the closed curtains, Midoriya felt a kind of warm glow that he didn't really get to experience all that often. He was still tired, barely able to keep his eyes open. But he just couldn't get back to sleep right now, for quite a few reasons. The most important of which was currently using his chest as a pillow. However, the slight amount of drool on his shirt was the last thing that he was focused on right now.

Here he was, in a slightly dangerous position. Trapped in a situation that was liable to make his heart leap out of his chest at any given moment. This wasn't his first time sharing a bed with Tokage. Actually, it had become a rather frequent occurrence between the two in recent weeks. Yet that was the only thing relatively normal about this entire predicament.

At the moment, Tokage was holding onto him with their legs tangled together like some complex puzzle. Halfway covered by his plain green comforter with the other half completely exposed to the air. But there were two major issues with all this. The first was that at some point during the night, Tokage decided to completely take her shirt off. Leaving her in nothing but her blue bra. And the second was that Midoriya's fingers somehow found their way under the elastic band of her pajama bottoms. Or at least he hoped that's where they were.

This was quite the predicament that green haired boy found himself in. Part of him wanted to immediately jump up and remove himself from this position before the girl woke up. However, the other more…hormonal part of him did not want to move a single centimeter. And frankly, that part was starting to win.

The now red-faced teen gazed up at the ceiling as he tried to figure out his next move. His number one priority was to make sure that Tokage did not wake up. Otherwise he'd be in for a world of teasing that he'd never see the end of. Surprisingly, Tokage was a very light sleeper. So he needed to be quick and smooth. Especially since all the blood in his body was now beginning to rush to everywhere but his brain.

"Y'know Izuku...if you wanted to cop a feel all you had to do was ask."

And just like that Midoriya's blood froze and his face instantly flushed like a ripened tomato. "H-how long have y-you been awake?"

"Like five minutes." The girl replied before propping herself up on his chest with her arms, exposing herself even further. "I was pretty comfortable, so I didn't bother moving."

"W-weren't you wearing a s-shirt before we went to bed?" He stuttered slightly.

"Yeah, but I ditched it because it got too hot. You're surprisingly warm. Especially with this blanket covering us."

Midoriya's face felt hot, really hot. And it was most definitely because his pretty, flirty and devious girlfriend had yet to realize that she was giving him a full view of herself with absolutely no issue whatsoever. He seriously had to reconsider whether or not he was dreaming right now.

"So…are you going to keep fondling my butt, or are we gonna keep this party going? Because I at least want to take a shower before we start getting dirty~." The girl teased with an evil smile.

As fast as lightning, Midoriya removed his hand from its previous position and began apologizing. Which only caused Tokage to begin laughing at his expense.

"How can you be so energetic this early in the morning?" The boy breathed out with a quick sigh.

"How can I not be with such a fine piece of meat underneath me when I wake up?"

"Thanks." He slightly chuckled. "But if anything, I'm the lucky one here. You look really cute with your hair all messy like that."

"Are you trying to butter me up? Because if you are, it's working." Tokage smiled once again before leaning down and wrapping her arms around his neck. Planting a quick peck on his lips.

"Good to know."

"So…" The girl leaned over to the nightstand and grabbed her phone. "We still got about forty-five minutes before breakfast. Which is more than enough time to take a nice long shower together."

Once again, the boy's face erupted into a brilliant shade of red. "I-I-I-I u-uh…"

"Hey, I'm just joking…mostly."

"Maybe some other time."

"I'll hold you to that." Was all the girl said before hoping out of the bed and grabbing some clothes from the dresser and walking into the bathroom. Making sure to put an extra bit of sway in her hips. Midoriya was so entranced by the early morning view that he completely missed one crucial detail to this entire scene.

"Hey, don't you have your own shower…and clothes?!"

* * *

Monday afternoon, Midoriya, Tokage, Yanagi and Honenuki were all making their way over to Gym Gamma. There they would meet up with Tokoyami for some extra training to make sure that they were in top form for the upcoming mission. Because of the seriousness of the operation, they were all ordered to keep the whole thing tight lipped. Thankfully, Kayama was able to get them approved to have the facility all to themselves.

By the time the group of four arrived at the training facility, they made it just in time to see the horde of remedial students from 1-A leaving the building. Upon first glance, everyone seemed to be alright. But as they got a closer look it was blatantly obvious to them that they had just been put through some special kind of hell.

"_Damn, Aizawa-sensei isn't playing any games with them, huh?"_ Tokage whispered to her boyfriend.

"_No kidding."_ He responded.

As they walked past the disheveled group of students, Tokage was the first to notice the absolute death glare that Bakugou was giving Midoriya. Except this time it wasn't the usual snarky look, it was a lot more aggravated than what she used to seeing from the blonde haired teen.

Even with everything that happened back at the camp, it was hard for the girl to feel any sympathy towards the boy with her newfound knowledge about how he used to treat Midoriya. It was publicly known that Bakugou was an asshole. But the fact that he went around harassing people for being quirkless seriously called into question his motivations for wanting to become a hero.

"What's got his panties in a wad?"

"Who cares?" Midoriya simply shrugged while blatantly ignoring the ashe blonde teen. For some reason, he had a feeling that he did something to the boy recently to piss him off. But couldn't remember what it was to save his life.

-(o)-

Once they were all inside the building, the group of four along with Tokoyami were quick to begin stretching out and warming up on the gym floor.

"So, what do you guys plan on working on while we're here?" Honenuki asked.

"Control is still my biggest issue." Midoriya was the first to answer. "I need to work on that if I'm going to be of any help during the operation."

"Makes sense."

Yanagi was the next one to speak. "While we're at it, I was hoping that you could show me the basics for the new move of your's Izuku-kun. It would be helpful to learn."

"Good point."

"I was hoping to feel some stuff out to see if I can come up with some new moves." Tokage then spoke up. "There's gonna be a lot going on during this thing and it would be great if I could help out in different areas."

"I do have a question, Tokage-san." Tokoyami asked the '_lizard tail splitter_' user.

"Shoot."

"Your quirk is very similar to Hawks' in how it functions. Have you ever watched any of his dealings and tried to replicate his moves?"

"I've never really been a fan of the guy. So I can't say that I have." The green haired girl responded. Now that she thought about it, there were quite a few similarities in their quirks.

"I see….Well, he does possess a technique that he uses in conjunction with his feathers. He utilizes them to perform individual tasks as he shares a telepathic connection with them."

"Oh really? Tell me more."

"Huh." Honenuki suddenly hummed while looking around. "I just realized that I'm the only one here who can't fly."

"That's true isn't it?" Yanagi commented.

"Actually...I myself am not fully capable of flight as I am now. I was hoping that Midoriya-san could give me some assistance on that."

"Me, really?" The boy raised his eyebrows at that.

"Yes, you are the best flyer out of everyone in our grade. So you would be the best person to aid me in my development."

"Y-you think so." The boy blushed while rubbing the back of his head. Midoriya never really considered himself the best when it came to anything. The only thing he really had going for him was overall power. Even then Katsuragi still had him beat in that regard. From what she described, he was still at around forty-five percent of where Tatsumaki was before she died. So he still had a long way to go before he could get to her level.

"Dude, you're pretty much the strongest person in our entire class. I mean, you're almost untouchable. The only people who can really give you any trouble in a straight up fight are probably Monoma-kun, Nirengeki-kun, Reiko-chan and Setsuna-chan." The lipless teen laughed.

"Especially with that "_Palace of Inertia"_ move that you now have..."

"I wouldn't say all that, I can only hold it for a few seconds. So it's not very reliable."

"My point still stands though. I would greatly appreciate some of your wisdom." Tokoyami continued.

"And _I_ would like to hear more about this move that Hawks does." Tokage interjected. "It sounds like we're going to be bouncing a lot of ideas off of each other while we get ready for this operation. So we'd better get started."

"Right." The other others nodded in agreement.

Just then, the doors to the building suddenly flew open. Revealing Kayama dressed in a red tracksuit with matching shoes. "Sorry I'm late, I was busy on the phone planning a dinner reservation."

"Oh yeah, dad's birthday is in a few weeks. Are you taking him anywhere nice?" Tokage asked her.

"Of course I am, only the best from the pro heroine Midnight!"

"Just try not to feel too bad when you crash and burn." The girl shot back with a devilish grin.

"Don't worry dear, this is going to be the night where I finally succeed! I can feel it. Urie will be like putty in my hands by the time I'm done with him!" Kayama practically cheered with sparkles in her eyes. And a look that told the rest of the group that she had something far less SFW planned.

"Does anyone else find it weird how they're perfectly comfortable having this conversation in front of us?" Yanagi looked to Midoriya, Tokoyami and Honenuki. With all three boys nodding their heads in agreement.

"Now then, let us begin this training session! And be sure not to slack off. I want you all nice and glistening with sweat by the time we're through today. After all...those strong, supple bodies of yours need to be in top form~." The black haired heroine said with a slight lick of her lips.

'_Okay seriously, how the hell did they let this woman become a teacher?'_ Everyone not named Tokage cringed at the woman's words.

* * *

_~Class 1-A Dorms~_

"Man...I'm beat!" Sero groaned as the '_tape' _quirk user dropped his sore body down on the sofa.

"Seriously." Satou agreed from across the coffee table.

At the moment, the majority of the 1-A students were all hanging out together in the common area. They had a pretty long and eventful day of training and studies. Especially those who had to take remedial lessons for the make-up exam. But now they finally had a chance to relax and unwind. The only people who weren't present for this were Todoroki, Mineta, Shoji, Shinsou, Koda and Tokoyami.

"Aizawa-sensei's really putting you guys through the ringer, huh?" Asked Uraraka while casually sipping her bottle of tea.

"Yeah, he is!" Ashido replied in an annoyed tone. "It's been like the training camp, but way worse!"

Yaoyorozu was quick to try and ease the pink skinned girl's irritation. "Well, he wants to make sure that everyone is prepared for the make-up exam."

"I still don't get how all of 1-B was able to pass."

"According to them, Kan-sensei tipped them off about the first part of the exam before they started. So they were able to avoid getting knocked out early, gero." Asui stated.

"That makes sense." Ojiro nodded. He was one of the first people knocked out during the test. If their sister class knew about getting ambushed beforehand then it's no wonder how all of them were able to pass.

"This is kind of off topic here, but has anyone seen Tokoyami?" Kaminari suddenly asked while looking around the room. "I haven't seen him in a while."

It had been some time since any of the students had seen their bird themed classmate. The last time they saw him was when they were all leaving the gym after their afternoon training session.

"I guess he's still hanging out with those guys from 1-B." Jiro shrugged apathetically.

"Oh yeah."

"Tokoyami-kun did mention something about asking Midoriya-san for tips on how to fly. Maybe that's why he's been gone for so long, gero."

"Makes sense, he is the go-to guy for that kind of thing."

"Yeah no kidding." Hagakure agreed.

"Did you see that news article with him and Blizzard? They stopped one of those bombings near a bridge."

"From what I've been told, quite a few members of 1-B are taking part in work studies." Yaoyorozu then announced.

"Man…must be nice." Ashido groaned. The only people in 1-A who were currently doing any work studies were Uraraka, Asui and Tokoyami.

"How much do you wanna bet that Midoriya got a perfect score on the exam?" Sero said in a joking fashion. "I mean, the guy has telekinesis. He probably breezed through the whole thing."

"He's pretty popular, huh? That Hadou girl who came by our class the other day talked about him a lot. Apparently he's pretty much guaranteed a job with Blizzard after we all graduate."

"Nejire-senpai did say that she was trying to recruit him to join Ryukyu-san for a while, gero." Asui chimed in.

"So not only is he strong, he's already got a job lined up with a famous hero." Kaminari joined the rest of the group as he took the open seat next to Jiro. "Plus he's a total lady-killer to boot. He's dating that Tokage chick and he's always with a cute gi- ack!" The '_electrification'_ quirk user was cut off when Jiro stabbed one of her earphone jacks into his neck.

"Dumbass…." The purpled haired teen scoffed with a slight blush on her face.

On the other side of the common area at one of the kitchen tables, a certain ashen blonde teen was doing his best not to outright shout at all those extras and telling them to shut up. It was bad enough that he had to deal with walking Kirishima through their math homework. But having to hear these losers praise that worthless Deku was like nails on a chalkboard to him.

"Hey, you good man?" Kirishima asked him. Noticing the annoyed expression on his classmate's face.

"Don't...worry about it." Bakugou responded through gritted teeth.

Ever since the provisional license exam, he had been on thin ice with Aizawa. The reason for his failure in particular was due to his foul mouth and attitude. Which absolutely made no sense to him. So what if he was a bit harsh to those idiot graders? He still executed the tasks perfectly and quickly. However, those idiots on the grading board had a different opinion.

After receiving their scores, Aizawa pulled him to the side and told him that he needed to change his attitude and "lose the entitlement complex" if he wanted to have another chance at passing. Naturally, the '_explosion'_ quirk user refuted this which was the wrong answer. That conversation quickly spiraled into a lecture on proper hero etiquette and politeness. Which was the last thing that Bakugou was trying to hear. Especially since he was still furious about failing.

Because of this, his teacher gave him an ultimatum. Either fix his attitude or get kicked out of the hero course. This of course led to him having to see Hound Dog once a week for apparent anger management issues.

This was bullshit, Katsuki Bakugou didn't deserve to be treated like this. He was the best. The top dog of this stupid class. How dare that eyepatch wearing bum treat him like this? He deserved to be here, more than any of these other extras. Including that damn criminal Deku.

How the school let someone like him continue to be a student here was beyond him. That nerd helped out that villain boss and injured his arms. He should be locked up in a prison cell. Not roaming around the school like some bigshot. Thinking that he's better than him. These thoughts led Bakugou's mind pack to a previous encounter that he had with that plain-faced detective and the principal.

-(o)-

"_What do you mean you're still going to let that nerd attend school here?!" Bakugou angrily shouted towards the two men. "You know what he did, right? He was helping those damn villains!"_

"_Bakugou-kun, please understand the situation. Midoriya-kun was being controlled against his will. Therefore he can't be held responsible for his actions during that battle." Nezu spoke in his typically calm voice._

"_And you actually believe that bullshit?! Obviously he's lying!"_

"_I assure you that he is not. The villain that you encountered admitted to it himself." Tsukauchi interjected. _

"_This is a load of horseshit!"_

"_The reason that we are telling you this is because we want to avoid any possible issues in the future. I understand that you may be harboring some ill will towards Midoriya-kun because of this incident. But now that you know the facts, I trust that you can put those feelings to the side." Said Nezu. _

_It took everything the boy had to keep himself from blowing something up right then and there. How could this be happening? That green haired loser was going to get away with helping out the same guy who almost killed All Might. Not only that, but he injured a group of other heroes before the fight._

"_Now that we got that out of the way, there's another issue that we were hoping to speak with you about." Nezu interrupted his mental tirade. _

"_And what is that?"_

_The white furred mammal then turned towards Tsukauchi. "During our interrogation, a number of things came to light. One of those was your apparent bullying and harassment of Midoriya because of his former quirkless status."_

"_What are you talking about? I never did anything to that loser." The boy feigned ignorance. What did any of this have to do anything? That loser Deku must've ratted him out during whatever sob story he gave to the police. Obviously trying to save his own skin. _

_Almost instantly, Tsukauchi's quirk went off like an alarm. Part of him was hoping that this was all some sort of misunderstanding. But that definitely wasn't the case at the moment._

"_Young Bakugou, I'm sure you're aware that assaulting someone with your quirk is a criminal offense. To go a step further, harassing someone on the basis of quirk status is technically a hate crime."_

"_What's your point?" The 'explosion' quirk user folded his arms with indignation. _

"_To keep things simple, I have more than enough reason to take you in for questioning concerning this matter. I've been to Aldera Junior High a number of times recently and your former teachers all corroborated with the claims against you. But seeing as there is no actual proof of this, I'm willing to push this under the rug and let you off with a warning. Especially considering recent events."_

_Now it was Nezu's turn to speak. "You're not being punished in any way, I can assure you of that. However, we take things like this very seriously at U.A.. And one thing I will not tolerate from my students is any action unbecoming of a hero, including those that harm others. From what we know, all of these allegations happened prior to attending our school."_

"_Okay…"_

"_Bakugou-kun, this is a school for future heroes. And based on your performance reviews from Aizawa-kun and the other teachers, your actions and behavior have been less than heroic. Your grades and performance have indeed been excellent. But everything else leaves much room for improvement."_

_They can't be serious right now. He was the one who got abducted and injured by the hands of those villains. And now he was getting lectured for shit that didn't even matter. What kind of nonsense is this?_

"_Simply put, I'm giving you a warning." The unidentified mammal continued. "I won't go as far as to recommend any action at the moment. I'll leave that decision up to Aizawa-kun for now. But with the situation as it stands, we'd like to avoid any future...problems. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"_

"_Yeah." Bakugou begrudgingly nodded. _

"_Excellent!" The man(?) clapped his paws together. "Then we have come to an understanding."_

"_I guess so." _

"_We simply wanted to make sure that you were aware of the situation moving forward. Now then, we do apologize for taking time out of your day Bakugou-kun. I'm sure that you're still unpacking all of your things in your new room. I do hope you have a wonderful day. And I look forward to seeing your progress in the near future."_

"_Can I go now?"_

"_Absolutely."_

_That was the last thing said before Bakugou quickly exited the room and made his way back to his dorm._

-(o)-

The more he thought about it, the more enraged the '_explosion'_ quirk user became. Yet there was one thing that was clear in his mind. This was all Deku's fault. That green haired loser was the source of all his problems.

He didn't know how he was going to do it yet. But Katsuki Bakugou swore that he would find a way to prove that Deku was nothing more than a worthless villain posing as a hero. That bastard may have been able to trick the school and police into thinking that he was some sort of saint. But he knew better. And he was going to prove it.

After all, it was a hero's duty to put away villains and come out victorious. And that's exactly what he was going to do.

* * *

_~Somewhere in Japan~_

In a dark alley somewhere in the middle of a bustling city, a masked person wearing all black casually approached a group of similarly dressed people.

"Nitro, good to see you!" A hooded figure said in a creepily cheery tone.

"Save the bullshit." Nitro quickly raised his hand. "You have the money?"

"Why of course!" The hooded figure happily handed over a black backpack filled with cash. While the other passed on a black duffle bag that was practically bursting at the seams to one of other individuals.

"I don't think I need to tell you to be careful with that stuff." Nitro told the other figure. "It's way more reactive and has three times the yield. I have access to more materials now so I went a bit overboard."

"Which is exactly what I'm looking for."

"This isn't any of my business, but what do you plan to do with all that? This is way more than what you usually ask for."

"I thought you weren't interested in our operations." Said another person who was leaning up against a wall with the arms folded across their chest.

"We do have an agreement, don't we?" Nitro glared at them. "And I'd be stupid not to ask what you're palnning to do with all that. Mainly because I don't want to be _anywhere_ near it when you set it off."

"Let's just say that our previous operation was only a precursor for what's to come. Because our other members got captured, we've had to accelerate our plan. So we've decided to introduce ourselves to the world with a bang."

"So where will this grand spectacle of yours take place?"

"North Tokyo. Don't worry...it's nowhere near where you're currently living."

"Good." Nitro simply nodded.

"Would you like to join us and watch all your hard work come to fruition?"

"Yeah right." The masked man scoffed. "I'm not an idiot."

"Fine."

With nothing more that needed to be said, Nitro turned around and began making his way down the alley towards the street.

"Until next time..._young man_."

"Whatever you say...Rogue."

* * *

**A/N: You guys wanted longer chapters, so there you go. 7,000+ words. I know this chapter bounced around quite a bit. I kinda went crazy with ideas at work and didn't feel the need to change anything. But I wanted to mix things up a bit and add a bit of fluff just for fun.**

**1\. Someone asked me where All Might has been lately. For the sake of simplicity, he's just been away from the school and recovering on Nezu's orders. He's also been training Mirio with OFA. But once we're done with this part of the story, he'll make his re-appearance. **

**2\. Since Tokoyami is taking part in the raid, I thought we might as well check in on how 1-A is doing. We won't see much of them until the cultural festival/joint training part of the fic. Things are going relatively well for them, but only a few of them are going to get some time to shine. **

**3\. The big mission happens next chapter. So I have no clue on how long it's going to be until I get that finished. There's going to be a lot happening and for now it's looking like it's going to be two chapters long. Plus it's going to be a nighttime operation which will make things even more complicated to pull off. Tokage's side will be one focus while Midoriya's will be the other. And I think you guys are going to like how it ends. Especially since we're going to finally have a true Midoriya/Fubuki team up...at full power. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review. Have a wonderful day**.


	43. Intermission

The weekends were a special occasion that the students of class 1-B always looked forward to. After a long week of hero lectures, homework and taxing physical training, the group of would be heroes finally had the chance to bask in the peaceful nothingness that came with no responsibilities for the day. There was no class until Monday, and everyone had the opportunity to leave the school and venture out on their own. However, on this particular Saturday morning, things were a bit different.

"Thanks for helping me again with my new move. I really appreciate it." Tokage said to her freckle faced boyfriend as the two made the short trip back to their dorm. The final test run for her new move was an overall success. But she still ended up losing the pinky finger on her right hand.

"Don't mention it. I was actually really interested in seeing how you were coming along." Midoriya replied with a grin.

The young couple decided to spend their Saturday morning working on perfecting some new skills that they managed to develop over the last couple of weeks. Although he preferred to spend his mornings sleeping in and relaxing, the thought of adding a new page in his hero notebook was too good of an opportunity to pass up for the green haired boy.

When the two finally set foot in the building, they were greeted with quite the peculiar sight. Every boy in their class including most of the girls were in the common room gathered around a whiteboard. Along with chairs and snacks scattered throughout the area. But the strangest thing about this entire scene was the fact that Kaibara was tied to a chair in the middle of the room.

"Uh...what's going on?" Midoriya asked, grabbing everyone's attention.

The first person to speak was Kendou. After pinching the bridge of her nose and letting out a rather dramatic sigh, the orange haired class-rep began explaining the situation. "The boys are having a heated debate and the rest of us got dragged into it."

"About what?" Said Tokage.

"We're trying to figure out who the biggest _"Chad"_ in our class is." Awase said without missing a beat.

"Come again?"

"We've narrowed it down to either Midoriya-san and Kaibara-san. But it appears that we've reached an impasse." Shishida further explained while staring at the board and rubbing his hairy chin.

"I knew I should've just stayed in my damn room..." The _'gyrate'_ quirk user moaned in a defeated tone. Long since given up on trying to escape this madness.

"Oh, this sounds like fun~." Tokage grinned deviously. This was exactly the kind of teenage nonsense that she lived on.

The two greenettes then turned their attention to the massive white board next to the television. On it were two pictures of both Midoriya and Kaibara separated by a thick black line down the middle. Under the photos were a plethora of bullet points and crudely drawn diagrams in almost illegible handwriting.

"Okay, back to what I was saying!" Tsuburaba spoke up. "The reason I'm saying it's Kaibara is because he has him beat out in looks. The girls already said that he's the most attractive guy in class."

Tokage quickly shot a sharp glance over to Kendou, Kodai and Shiozaki who were all huddled together on the sofa.

"We were coming down to get breakfast and the guys just started berating us with questions." Kendou drug her hand across her face.

"This is deplorable..." Shiozaki groaned.

"Hmm." Kodai nodded.

"You might be right, Tsuburaba-kun." Monoma suddenly announced while pointing to the whiteboard. "However, I would like to revisit evidence 3-G. Although Kaibara-kun is the most attractive, Midoriya-kun has a more muscular build."

"If it was that simple, then Bondo-kun would be at the top of the list." Shoda countered.

"Kaibara also has more of a _playboy_ vibe than Midoriya." Tetsutetsu added.

Now it was Kamakiri's turn to talk. "You dickwads are forgetting the most important part! Midoriya's always surrounded by girls. Has anyone ever seen him not next to one? Come on, he even has that hot third year girl all over him!"

_'This can't be happening right now.'_ Midoriya internally groaned. He was about to say something but Tokage decided to throw her hat into the ring.

"Let me take a look at this." The _'lizard tail splitter'_ user moved over to the whiteboard to get a better look. Taking a few seconds to review the information. "No, this is all wrong. Your methodology is flawed. You're focusing too much on physical features."

"What do you mean?" Tetsutetsu asked her.

"None of you have taken social factors into account. Like reputation and popularity. You can't make a clear decision without those."

"Why are _you_ encouraging this?" Kaibara let out a single tear.

Already predicting that this entire situation could go left at any point, Midoriya decided that his best option was to just leave and let this matter sort itself out. The boy began making his way towards the elevator, but was stopped by Honenuki and Awase who suddenly shoved him into a chair next to Kaibara.

"Alright boys, let's take this from the top!" Tokage shouted confidently while taking control of the debate. Much to Midoriya's chagrin.

What the hell was this? Shouldn't she be on his side? Then again, something like this was right up Tokage's alley. Honestly, Midoriya would've been more surprised if his girlfriend _didn't_ want to take part in this nonsense. She lived for this kind of stuff.

"Kaibara here might edge out Izuku in terms of general attractiveness. But he lacks the "cute and adorable" factor that Izuku has in spades. Plus...he doesn't have freckles."

"I told you motheruckers!" Kamakiri shouted smugly.

"Hold on!" Honenuki protested. "Isn't your opinion kind of biased since he's your boyfriend and all?"

"Obviously." The girl replied.

"Let's not forget that both of them have fan clubs amongst the female students, shroom." Komori put in her two cents. Holding up her cellphone to display one of the many U.A. student Facebook pages.

"Wait...what?" Both Midoriya and Kaibara turned to the short, brunette girl with confused looks on their faces.

"You didn't know?" The green haired girl asked. "A few of the first year guys have fan clubs. All the girls know about it. Todoroki in 1-A has the biggest. But Izuku, Kaibara and that Kaminari dude have a pretty solid following the last time I checked."

"And such things are completely immoral!" Shiozaki chided.

"Nejire Hadou and Yaoyorozu have ones too." Tsuburaba followed up as he held up his own phone. "Even Kodai's got some fans."

"Hmm?" The stoic, black haired teen slightly tilted her head.

"Alright, back to business! If we factor in overall popularity, Izuku has the clear advantage on _Chad-ness_. Sorry Kaibara, but you just haven't gotten the same level of exposure."

"I don't care…" The black haired boy sighed. Why the hell does he always get roped into stuff like this?

"But what the hell does that have to do with the price of tea in China? In fact, this just proves my point!" Monoma retorted. "If we're talking about overall Chad-ness, Midoriya-kun is clearly the victor. He's got the popularity, the look, the douchey haircut, everyone thinks Blizzard is his sister..."

"He's also got the most in girls following his fan page out of the two from the looks of it. But only by like thirty." Awase added.

"Let's not forget that he's the main character of this story." Fukidashi's speech bubble spelled out.

_"Is my haircut really that big of a deal?"_ Midoriya whispered to his fellow captive.

_"It's trendy."_ The _'gyrate'_ quirk user shrugged. _"I know I couldn't pull it off as well as you do."_

The conversation went on like this for the better part of twenty minutes. With each member of the congregation going back and forth. Pleading their cases and adding new information to take into account. With each passing minute, Midoriya could feel his soul slowly evacuate his body.

"Hey, don't we get a say in this?" Midoriya pleaded. "Isn't a "Chad" supposed to be someone who's like...kind of an...asshole?"

"Well, both of you are pretty cool. So we threw that criteria out the window before you showed up." Awase explained.

"I'd like to point out that Kaibara-san routinely receives anonymous love letters from secret admirers throughout the week." Shishida began crunching the number on his calculator. "By my calculations, he's up to thirty-five this year. He's averaging two a week."

"Seriously?" Kendou deadpanned.

"It makes sense." Tokage began rubbing her chin in thought. "With his quirk, it's no surprise that a ton of girls and guys would want a piece of him. Everyone probably thinks he'd be a fun time."

"Setsuna!"

That comment was more than enough to turn Midoriya, Kaibara, Shiozaki and Komori a furious shade of red. How can she say something like that so casually?

"Okay, okay, okay." Honenuki tried calming everyone down. "This is getting us nowhere and I still haven't eaten yet. Let's just put it to a vote."

"Good idea!" Tetsutetsu agreed.

"Everyone who thinks Kaibara-kun is the biggest "Chad" in the class, raise your hand!"

Shoda, Shishida, Tsuburaba, Fukidashi, Komori and Bondo all raised their hands to cast their votes.

"And for Midoriya?"

Tokage, Tsunotori, Honenuki, Monoma, Awase, Tetsutetsu, Kuroiro and Kamakiri all casted their ballots.

"Are you guys not gonna vote?" The leader of this totally wholesome conversation looked to the other three girls sitting on the sofa.

"I abstain..." Kendou scowled.

"I will take no part in this sinful sham of a debate." The vine haired teen answered. Why she was even still here was a mystery to her.

"Alright, it's been decided. The biggest "Chad" in class 1-B is none other than our very own Izuku!" Tokage announced with an obnoxious laugh while pointing to her boyfriend.

"This is bullshit!" Tsuburaba scoffed. "Midoriya's way too nice. He's practically the class best-boy!"

"Congratulations, Chad-oriya!" Awase patted him on the shoulder with a cheeky smile.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, you're Chad-oriya now."

"Can we please not make this a thing?" The green haired boy groaned.

"Nope!" His questionable choice of a girlfriend immediately replied. "From now until the end of eternity, you'll officially be known as Chad-oriya. First of his name, Walker of Skies, The Freckled Prince, heir to the throne of tools and douchebags everywhere!"

_'Okay, she's having way too much fun with this…'_

"I hereby pledge my undying fealty to you and your station...your majesty." Awase began comically bowing towards Midoriya. Getting a few of the other boys to join him.

-(o)-

_~Inside Midoriya's Mind~_

"I'll have to admit, these brats do have a point." Tatsumaki said while watching this nonsense unfold through Midoriya's eyes from the comfort of their shared mindspace. Even a dead person needed a bit of entertainment every now and then. And it's not like she could do much in her current position.

"He's not a complete Chad, but he's definitely hitting all the important criteria. The nerd may be a total softie, but he's pretty much got a small harem already lined up. Eh, it could be worse. At least he's not a Kyle."

-(o)-

"This is ridiculous." The verdant teen began blushing at the scene before him.

"Better you than me." Kaibara gave Midoriya a weak chuckle. "Can we go now? I have somewhere I have to be in like an hour."

_"Probably on another date with one of those girls from the business course."_ Kamakiri quietly snickered to Fukidashi.

At that moment, the main door to the building opened up, revealing one exhausted looking Reiko Yanagi. The grey haired girl typically wasn't an earlier riser, especially on the weekends. She usually slept in longer than anyone else when they didn't have class. With one quick look at her, the students of 1-B noticed that the bags under her eyes were heavier than normal.

"Ghosty, where the hell have you been? You almost missed the coronation ceremony." Tokage said to her pale classmate.

"You okay, Reiko-chan?" Kendou gave the girl a concerned look.

"Too tired...early morning...Hatsume-san...torture...going back to bed." Was all the 'poltergeist' user had the energy to say before dragging her feet towards the elevator. Looking even more like a ghost than usual. Whatever the hell her classmates were doing right now had to wait until after she got some rest.

* * *

After all the excitement of the morning died down, Tokage went back to her room to shower and unwind for a bit.

As the _'lizard tail splitter'_ user laid down on her bed, she couldn't help but stare at the missing appendage on her hand. Years of training up her quirk gave the girl a pretty good idea on how long it would take something to grow back after she lost it. And by her estimate, her finger should return to normal in about two hours. However, the girl couldn't help but wonder if she could do something about that.

When it came to her regeneration, Tokage never really focused on it all that much. It may have been a secondary ability of her quirk that was incredibly useful. But her father and Kayama beat it into her head as a kid that she couldn't rely on it in a dangerous situation. Which made a lot of sense. There wasn't much that she could do to train it after all. Doing so would mean that she would need to intentionally injure herself. And something like that was definitely off the table.

_'Still though, I wonder…'_

Suddenly, Tokage sat up and began focusing on her hand. She had only tried this a few times before in the past. And each time ended up making her pass out. But now that she was older and had a lot more stamina, maybe it would work out this time. Especially since it was such a minor injury for her.

Forced regeneration was something she always considered. But the cost was a rapid drain on her stamina. The basic requirements to regrow lost limbs was a sufficient amount of calories and energy. This wasn't something that she could do on the fly. But right now, she was in the comfort of her room and had a belly full of breakfast.

The girl's face contorted into an ugly expression as she flexed the non-existent muscles in her missing finger. The feeling wasn't something that she could describe to someone very easily. But the best way that she could put it was applying pressure from the base of her knuckle and forcing it upwards.

As the seconds passed, Tokage could slowly see her pinky finger reforming bit by bit. Bone fragments appeared and were quickly covered up by tendons and ligaments before finally seeing muscles. And eventually skin.

_'Damn, this is rough.'_ The girl winced and sucked in a bit more air before giving one final push to complete this task. And sure enough, like magic her finger was back to its former glory.

The second she released her quirk, Tokage felt a wave of nausea hit her and her stomach immediately began growling. She quickly laid back down on her bed and took a moment to breath before checking her work.

"Even just one finger was enough to completely drain me, huh? Makes sense, I'm not used to this kind of thing." She said out loud.

The girl couldn't help but wonder if her mother found a way to work around this. From what her father told her, she could regrow an entire hand in about ten minutes with almost no issue. Tokage herself found the very idea to be insane since doing something like that would be pretty much impossible for her right now. Almost all regeneration quirks were different. And it sucked that the one person who was an expert on this particular one wasn't around anymore.

Considering the cost, it was no wonder why Urie made it point to tell her not to rely on it as much. Doing so would just be irresponsible on her part. But the more she thought about it, the more she knew that if she ever wanted to cut it as a rescue hero she would need to master this.

"I guess that's just one more thing I need to work on. Maybe I'll stop by Recovery Girl's office on Monday and get some advice from her."

With that, the _'lizard tail splitter'_ user carefully drudged over to her nightstand and grabbed some dino-themed snack crackers from the bottom drawer. Her little stunt left a hole in her stomach that only her favorite snack in the world could fill. Along with a fogginess in her head that she might as well start getting used to.

_'This is going to be total pain in the ass.'_

* * *

**A/N: Just a quick intermission "comedy" chapter to lighten up your weekend. I'm having writer's block right now with the whole terrorist raid (I'm trying not to go too dark for one scene.). And I was sitting on this for a while. So I thought I might as well post it now. I want the entire class to have more moments like this, and I have a few ideas. So expect some more of these when the tone of the story lightens up.**

**1\. I'm about halfway through with the first chapter of the raid mission. I can't give a good estimate on when it will be finished. So sorry for that. But I'm shooting for late next week.**

**2\. The roster for the Joint Training Class has been decided, thanks to everyone who made a suggestion. I was working on the outline for it and I think it's going to be really entertaining. Certain characters are also going to make their long awaited debut in those chapters. So I'm looking forward to finally writing it.**

**3\. I want to switch things up for the Cultural Festival a bit. So if any of you have any ideas for that, I'm more than open for suggestions. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a review/comment!**


	44. Raid: Part 1

"Quirk suppressing bullets?!" Nearly everyone shouted at the Chief Detective Watanabe.

The long awaited night had finally arrived. After nearly two weeks of investigating, scouting, preparation and planning, the raid team was now ready to make their move.

During the last few weeks, Edgeshot, Hawks and some other heroes and detectives had spent countless hours doing the groundwork to figure out the next meeting location for Derelicta. They encountered more than their fair share of bumps in the road. But their big break finally came in the form of a known contact of one of the criminals that were captured during the bridge incident.

From there, it was simply a matter of getting him to decipher the coding methods that the organization used to alert their members of the next meeting location. And sure enough, they now had an exact time and place for when they would make their move.

"Yes, you heard me correctly." The black haired detective confirmed to the group. "These quirk bullets have been circulating on the streets for a few weeks. They've mostly been used by small time criminals and gangs."

"This is just getting even more complicated." Ozehana breathed out an annoyed sigh. Rumors about these things had been circulating through the hero network ever since the incident involving Fatgum and his interns. But she never expected that they would be involved.

"We were able to get in contact with the Nighteye Agency about this. As it turns out, they're working on a case to bring the manufacturers into custody that should be taking place in the morning. From the information that they've given us, the effect is only temporary. But Derelicta was able to get their hands on some."

"I'm a bit relieved to hear that, but this changes our plans quite a bit." Edgeshot then said. "If we end up being unable to use our quirks, then most of our firepower will be negated."

"Yes and no. I understand your concerns, but from what we know they don't have a lot of them. The bullets are extremely expensive and the supplier isn't exactly handing them out like candy."

"In any case, it's not like we have a lot of options. Their big operation is supposed to be taking place tonight. So we'll just need to be extra careful." Katsuragi added.

That was another thing. Apparently, the quirkless terrorist organization already had their next attack planned out. Their interrogation of the captured member revealed that the next bombing was going to be happening tonight. They weren't exactly sure what the target was or how it was going to go down. But it was supposed to be on an even greater scale than all of the previous incidents.

"Our plan going in is still the same. We'll just need to be more cautious and make sure to disarm any and every one that we see. Once we make the first move, things will get pretty hot. So stay on high alert."

"Yes sir!" Everyone present shouted.

"Now, everyone go suit up and get ready to head out. The group is meeting up in three hours so we don't have any time to waste!"

* * *

"Man, I didn't know that we were going to go all out for this." Tokage said as the girl tied her hair into a tight bun in the back of her head.

"No kidding." Honenuki agreed while adjusting his uniform.

"I'm just glad that my dad was able to get me this new suit in time. Putting in that rush order request was a nightmare."

"Yes, Urie did a wonderful job making these on such short notice." Kayama agreed with her niece.

Due to the clandestine nature of this entire operation, the group of heroes, students and police officers were fully decked out in stealth and riot gear. Mostly everyone had to make emergency adjustments to their costumes to fit their needs. Which pretty much amounted to converting everything to accommodate a nighttime operation.

Instead of their hero costumes, Honenuki and Yanagi were dressed in official police riot gear that the department was able to get them. The '_softening'_ quirk user was still able to keep most pieces of his outfit. Which were now painted jet black as opposed to its normal bright orange color. While Yanagi's hover disc and utility belt had undergone a similar alteration. Along with the signature black mask that covered the bottom half of her face.

Tokage was now dressed in a new blackened version of her costume, along with a bulletproof vest over top of it. She doubted that it would do much given the nature of her quirk. But they weren't going to take any chances. And Kayama pretty much told her that she wasn't going anywhere without putting it on.

Tokoyami and Midoriya were the only two who didn't need to make any major changes since their costumes more or less fit the requirements for the mission. The '_telekinesis'_ user opted for his black overcoat instead of his preferred green one. While the resident edge lord of 1-A also had to place a vest over his attire. Which wasn't going to hinder his quirk in the slightest.

"I still can't believe we all had to dye our hair though. I wasn't expecting that." Midoriya commented while playing with the tufts of his now jet-black locks.

This was another element that apparently came with operations like this. Everyone was required to dye their hair to further accentuate the new look. Bright colors stood out too much, even in the dead of night. So this was necessary to avoid being spotted.

"Y'know Izuku, you look exactly like your dad now." Tokage joked while giving him the once over. With the new look, you could see just how much he favored his father in terms of looks over his mother. Especially with the freckles. The girl would be lying if she said that she wasn't a fan.

"We have to do stuff like this all the time." Katsuragi said as she joined the conversation. The woman now missing her signature white fur coat and green dress. "It's pretty common to change your wardrobe depending on the mission. I used to do this all the time when I was still doing missing persons cases a couple of years ago."

"They never taught us stuff like this in class." Yanagi stated. She assumed that this was just another one of those "learn as you go" things.

"You guys remember the teams, right?"

"Sure do!" Tokage gave her a thumbs up.

"Me and Setsuna-chan will be with Ember on the second team." The grey haired girl repeated what she had been told earlier.

"Tokoyami-kun and I will be with Snatch and a squad of police officers with team three." Honenuki was the next to speak with a nod from Tokoyami.

"And I'll be doing aerial surveillance with you and Hawks." Midoriya added.

"Midnight and Edgeshot will be on the main assault team since their quirks are more suited for subduing people." The '_psychokinesis'_ user once again clarified. "The building has multiple floors so we'll be moving in stages. All you guys need to do is follow directions and help with detaining whomever we catch and take them outside."

"I would've preferred to be in the first team. But my quirk will be needed in case something goes wrong." Ember said. In terms of necessity, the '_flame control'_ user was probably the most important when it came to clean up in the event of a disaster.

"I feel the same way." Katsuragi agreed. "But we don't need to put all of our eggs in one basket."

"Yeah...I know."

The group spent the next thirty minutes making their final preparations and going over their strategy one last time before getting the call to head to their assigned vehicles. The students would be lying if they said that they weren't nervous as all hell about this entire situation. But that was to be expected for a group of high schoolers on their first big mission. They knew that everything was going to be fine and they had gone over their plan enough to memorize it. So there was no doubt in their minds that the mission was going to be a success.

It had to be, otherwise a lot of lives would be in danger. And they were not going to let that happen.

* * *

"Rogue." A masked man said to the leader of the terrorist organization. "It looks like you were right. Tagawa was taken into custody by the police."

"I thought so." Their leader simply rubbed his chin. "It's unfortunate, but we already knew this to be the case."

"So what are we gonna do?"

Rogue looked around the room filled with people and thought to himself for a moment. The other members patiently waited for his response. Which came almost without a second thought. "We proceed as planned. Our pieces are already in place and there's no turning back now."

"As you wish!" The others shouted vigorously.

'_Your efforts will be fruitless, heroes. Today is the day we show the world just what we're capable of. No matter what, you won't be able to stop us.'_

* * *

In no time, the raid team were all getting into their position near their target. An abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the Tokyo industrial area.

Things had been pretty quiet over that last half hour of their steak out. And even though there was a considerable amount of traffic in and out of the building, the commotion seemed to die down quite a bit. From what they could see, every member of the group had their faces covered and there were a few guards posted on the inside of the main entrance.

The building itself was four stories high with multiple exits on the north and south side. And due to the area, numerous pipes and concrete pillars made getting a perfect view of the site impossible without getting too close.

"_Alright, is everyone in position?"_ The chief detective said over the communications devices.

-(o)-

"_Team one is good to go."_ Edgeshot said as his and Midnight's group stationed themselves behind a nearby building facing the main entrance.

They were only three hundred meters or so away from the door and knew that if this operation was going to be a success, they would need to move fast. This team specifically was tasked with knocking out as many people as possible and clearing the first floor before any of the others could move in. Although they managed to get an old blueprint of the building prior to the start of all this, they knew better than to not expect a few surprises.

-(o)-

"_Team two is good to go."_ Ember repeated from their group's spot about two hundred meters away from the first team. Their job was simply to back up the Midnight's group once they cleared each of the floors and detain as many people as they could. If all went well, there would hardly be any resistance.

"This kinda reminds me of our first exercise at the start of the year." Yanagi whispered next to Tokage as she released the retention strap on her belt.

"No kidding." The green haired girl agreed.

-(o)-

"_Team three, ready to move."_ Snatch said this time.

The name of the game for them was pretty much containment. There was a single roadway leading up to the building and their primary job was to cut off any and all escape routes. Based on the layout of the area, there were only two ways that any of the criminals had a chance to escape through. But those were no longer an option.

"Good work taking care of the roadway, Mudman." The sand hero complimented the '_softening'_ quirk user. During their preparation Honenuki took the liberty of softening a significant portion of the main roadway. Now, the only person who could freely move through that area was him.

"Thank sir." The ashen skinned teen nodded. "You good up there, Tsukuyomi?" He then turned around to where his classmate was perched atop a medium sized pillar across the road.

"All is well on my part. Victory will be assured for us." The raven-headed teen replied rather calmly.

-(o)-

"_Team four, we're all green up here."_ Blizzard finally said, floating alongside Midoriya above the building. While the two of them chose to remain in one spot for now, Hawks was busy circling the area to get a better view of the connecting streets.

Like previously stated, they were pretty much the eyes in the sky for the entire group. The two greenettes were also going to serve as backup for any of the other teams in case they needed it. Since they all had the highest mobility and most versatile quirks out of the bunch, this was the best use of their skills.

"Nothing new yet?" Blizzard then turned to Midoriya.

"No." The boy shook his head. He had been using the infrared setting on his helmet to see if there was any excess movement outside the warehouse. But there was nothing as of yet. Despite his support item being incredibly useful for this scenario, he still couldn't see anything beyond the walls of the building.

"You okay?" The woman asked in a concerned tone.

"Mhmm." He gave her a short nod.

Although Midoriya wasn't necessarily the calmest person by nature, he found himself oddly relaxed at the moment. Maybe it was because he was with his older sister. Or the thought that their plan was pretty well put together. But something in the back of his mind told him that he shouldn't be as reposed as he was now.

'_I just hope that everyone will be alright.'_ He thought to himself while glancing over in the direction of Tokage's team. More than a bit worried over the safety of his friends and girlfriend.

"Don't worry, just remember what you learned and we'll be done in no time. To be honest, you're the one I'm the _least_ worried about out of your group." She said in a reassuring tone.

"Right."

Suddenly, the voice of the detective Watanabe caught their attention. "_Alright team, it's go time. Team One, the operation begins on your move."_

Edgeshot gave on final confirmation before him and his group quickly rushed towards the main entrance of the building. Signaling the commence of the raid.

In mere moments, the first team were at the main entrance and charged through the door. With the second team quickly following them. Although they weren't able to see what was going on inside yet, Tokage and the others could hear quite the commotion from inside.

The group spread out a bit and posted themselves behind some nearby walls as they waited for the signal to advance. For what seemed like the next forty-five seconds or so, all that could be heard was a myriad of screams and loud crashing sounds.

"We're being raided!" An unfamiliar voice howled before suddenly going silent. Obviously being one of the criminals inside.

"_First floor is clear! Second team, move in."_ Edgeshot said commandingly. Since they just lost their element of surprise, there was really no point in being quiet anymore.

Without so much as a word, Tokage's and the others sprinted towards the building to begin their part of the mission. The moment they stepped inside, their group was met with the sight of about twenty people either laying passed out on the ground or being held down by one of the police officers. Pretty much anyone that was still conscious was female. Which was one of the side effects of the "R-Rated" heroine's '_somnambulist' _quirk.

"Hurry up and get these people outside! One of them already ran up to the second floor!" Midnight directed the group.

Before anyone could even begin to move, all hell broke loose.

There were two staircases leading up to the next floor on opposite ends of the warehouse. And both suddenly became overrun with members of the terrorist group armed with pistols already aimed at the heroes.

"Open fire! Take down these quirky bastards!" One of the men on the staircase closest to Tokage and Yanagi shouted as everyone pulled the triggers on their weapons. Unfortunately for them, the only thing that they heard were a series of metallic clicks as all of their weapons misfired at the same time.

"What the hell? Our guns aren't working."

"Here's a little fact about guns." Ember then said confidently. "They use combustion to fire their bullets. And since my quirk allows me to control fire, I can negate that. Lizardy, Emily!"

The two girls didn't even hesitate before jumping into action. Tokage held out her left arm and pointed it directly at the criminals, "**Scattershot!"**

In the blink of an eye, the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user's arm split into ten pieces and flew at the men closest to her on the staircase. Before they could even react, they were all met with some rather forceful blows to the head. Powerful enough to completely knock them off their feet.

"**Will o' Wisps!"** At the same time, Yanagi launched her mini-discs at the rest of the men in a similar fashion. Yielding the same results.

"Nice job!" Ember quickly said.

One the other end of the room, the rest of the group were quick to handle the initial wave of men that came down the stairs. With Edgeshot and Midnight easily knocking them out. But things quickly took a left turn. With no warning, the ceiling above the center of the room suddenly had a hole blasted through it. And just as quickly, what appeared to be a few smoke grenades quickly filled the place with a dense fog.

"Shit!" Someone gasped.

"Don't let these assholes get to the top floor!" An unidentified voice shouted before a mob of figures dressed in black jumped down through the new opening.

'_The top floor?'_ Tokage thought.

"We're too bunched together!" Another person shouted.

In a matter of seconds, what could only be described as an all out brawl broke out. Due to their already close proximity to one another, Tokage and Yanagi went back-to-back and began fighting off anyone that came near them. They didn't have a clear sight of what was going on because of the smoke, but it wasn't dense enough to completely cloud their vision.

"Ghosty, on your right!" Tokage spotted the figure fast enough for the grey haired teen to use her hover-disc as a projectile and launch it directly at their opponent. The loud grunt and thud indicating that they were down for the count.

"Lizardy, get above the smoke and give us some eyes! I'll back up Emily!" Ember demanded just after punching another person in the face.

The green haired girl complied and split her body up above the area to get a better view of what was going on. Down below, she could see Edgeshot zipping through the far side of the room and piercing the torsos of anyone that he came across. While Midnight was elegantly evading attacks and disarming a group of other opponents.

'_Aunt Nemu can't use her quirk like this. It's too risky.'_ She quickly surmised. Seeing as she now had the best vantage point of anyone in the room, the girl decided that she needed to help out as many people as she could. Without a second thought, Tokage split her body up into forty pieces and began hitting anyone she could see through the now dissipating smoke.

"_Edgeshot, what's going on in there?!"_ Blizzard's voice sounded through the communication device in the hero's ear. Things were getting loud and small spurts of gunfire could be heard every now and then.

"_We're being overrun, they filled the whole bottom floor with smoke!"_

"_We're moving in!"_ She instantly replied.

The moment she said that, the PA system in the building activated. "**We've been surrounded! Heroes have taken the bottom floor. Do not let these quirky bastards foil our plans!"**

"Change of plans! We're going up the staircase. Emily, Lizardy, let's move!" Ember announced while sprinting towards objective. The two teenagers quickly followed suit along with some nearby officers who just finished fighting off some more members.

-(o)-

Outside the building, the voice of Hawks radioed to Snatch and the third team. "_Hey, we got movement two hundred meters to your four o' clock!"_

Everyone turned around to see that sure enough a small group of people were sprinting towards a smaller warehouse not too far away from them.

'_There's more of them? What the hell? Where were they hiding?'_ The lipless teen thought.

"Tsukuyomi, Mudman and you four, let's move! The rest of you stay here and watch the area!" The sand hero ordered the students and some of the other members of his group.

Tokoyami covered himself in his '_dark shadow'_ and leapt down from the platform that he was standing on to join the others. It took all of a few seconds for them to meet the small group head on and Honenuki wasted no time in turning the ground under them into quicksand.

"What the hell?!" One of the members shrieked.

"Heroes!" Another pointed in their direction.

The now sinking Derelicta members fumbled with their waistbands to grab their weapons. But Tokoyami was fast enough to engage them before they had a chance to get themselves in order.

"_You got more moving from the other direction!"_ Hawks announced. "_I'll take care of them, you worry about getting these guys under control."_

-(o)-

Back with the main group, Blizzard and Midoriya bursted through an open window on the second floor to back up the others. Immediately upon entering the room, they encountered a group of criminals moving through the hallway.

"It's Blizzard!"

"**Push!"** The green haired heroine shouted before sending everyone in front of her flying into a nearby wall. "Skywalker, take care of the next room."

"Got it!" Midoriya complied, stepping through the adjacent doorway and replicating his pseudo-sisters action from earlier by forcing another two people into the back wall. Knocking them out instantly.

"_Edgeshot, me and Skywalker are on the second floor. We're going on ahead."_

"_Be careful, there's something pretty important on the top floor that they don't want us to get to. You might meet more resistance up there."_

With that, Blizzard took a brief moment to think about their next move. It was a safe bet to assume that Rogue was probably on the fourth floor. Along with whatever it was that these terrorists didn't want them to get so badly. She wanted to support Ember and the others, but her and Midoriya would be quicker if they just went straight for the top. Although she agreed that working their way up was an easier way to organize their movements, an attack on two fronts would back these guys into a corner.

She then glanced over at Midoriya who took the liberty of wrapping a nearby pipe around the now subdued criminals and decided that the two of them would be more than enough to handle this. "_Ember, we're heading straight to the top floor. Do you think your team can handle working your way up and then meet up on the third?"_

"_No problem, boss. Go make it happen!"_ The '_flame control'_ user replied.

That was all that the woman needed before her and Midoriya jumped out the nearby window and flew up to the top of the building.

-(o)-

Things slowed down considerably as the second team bounced from room to room to finish clearing out the second floor. They met a good amount of opponents during that time. But with Ember negating the effects of their guns, Tokage and Yanagi were able to take down people pretty easily.

The green haired girl couldn't help but wonder that this entire operation was going a bit too smoothly. Sure it wasn't a walk in the park, but something in the back of her mind couldn't help but feel weird about this. Derelicta was supposed to have around eighty members in their group. But so far they had only encountered at most forty of them in total. She wasn't aware of what was going on outside, yet the lack of manpower here was concerning.

With the second floor now cleared, the group stacked up along the wall next to the staircase leading up to the third. Tokage detached one of her eyes and set it ahead to scout out the area. This floor had a lot more open space compared to the last one and the girl could see a group of people hiding in the corners next to some pillars waiting to strike.

"There's ten of them from what I can see." The girl stated. "It's an open space, with one connecting hallway."

"Edgeshot and Midnight just finished up the first floor. They're moving up the other end of the building right now."

"So what's the plan?" Yanagi asked nervously. She had been doing okay so far, but there were more than a few close calls for her up until this point. Thankfully, Tokage had her back.

"We need to draw them out." One of the officers in front of her said. "I have two flashbangs left. We can use that to disorient them."

"That will only buy us a few seconds though." Another followed up.

"I'm pretty sure that I can handle the guys on the back wall. I'm fast enough to get to them." Tokage suggested.

Ember took a moment to consider their options. She herself could only take on one person at a time depending on how spread out they were. But they needed to move as a unit to limit any chance of getting blindsided. "We'll use the flashbang first to mess them up. Once it goes off, Lizardy will go to the far end of the room and deal with whoever is back there. The rest of us will rush the staircase and take out whoever is left."

Everyone nodded as the group repositioned themselves accordingly with the officer holding the flashbang at the front. Tokage immediately split herself up and Yanagi put her hover-disc in front of her to act as a makeshift shield. With one final thumbs up, the man moved up the stairwell and chucked the device through the doorway.

"Oh fuck, flash gre-"

***Bang!***

Despite the almost ear splitting sound that came from the device, Tokage flew through the door and launched herself at everyone she could see. Which were five people near the hallway. And with their window of opportunity now wide open, the rest of the group charged in and began taking down the others who were still doubled over in pain.

-(o)-

Back with Midoriya and Blizzard, the two found a large window on the northern side of the building. The woman peeked through to see a small, dimly lit room with three people huddled over a table and two more posted up next to the doorway. One woman appeared to be talking on her cellphone while the other two men shuffled through some boxes.

'_Looks like we found the guys in charge.'_ The '_psychokinetic'_ heroine surmised before turning to her partner. "On three, we rush in and take down everyone inside. There's only five of them, so it will be easy to handle. They won't see us coming."

"Got it." The boy replied in a hushed tone. Down below, Midoriya spotted some wooden pallets and levitated them towards him. With the element of surprise on their side, this would prove to be enough of a diversion to help them out.

With her fingers, Blizzard gave him the signal and Midoriya threw the wooden pallets through the window before she immediately went inside.

"Oh fuck!" The woman on the phone shouted only a split second before receiving a flying kick to the face courtesy of Blizzard's left foot.

What happened next was a rather impressive display of power from the young '_telekinesis'_ user. Midoriya took control of all the other members in the room and forced them all together in one spot. Then proceeded to throw them against the wall. To be perfectly honest, the green haired boy wasn't a fan of using his quirk on others in this fashion. But this was the most effective way to subdue them with little resistance.

"Damn you!" The woman shouted at them while trying to stand up. Only to be brought back down to the ground by Blizzard's quirk.

"Don't bother resisting! Now where's your boss? Which one of you is Rogue?!"

"Not here, you quirky bitch!"

"What?!"

"You really think we didn't catch on to your little plan? We knew you people were coming here ahead of time." The quirkless woman continued.

That was more than enough to shock the two greenettes. These people already knew they were coming? How? Their mission was kept a secret. Did someone tip them off? Who? These were all the thoughts that immediately flooded Midoriya's mind. But there was something else to this. If they already knew that they were going to be raided, then why did they bother still having their group meet up like this? It didn't make any sense. Suddenly, the metaphorical lightbulb went off over the boy's head.

"You're a diversion?!"

"Real fucking genius this one is, huh?" One of the men laughed confidently.

"What's going on?! Where's your boss?! And what's your plan?!" Blizzard demanded impatiently.

"Burn in hell with you and the rest of your kind, hero!" The woman turned her head in disgust.

Seeing as they probably didn't have enough time for an interrogation, Blizzard chose to hold them in place. By sheer luck, there was a metal shelf close to her. So she used her quirk to quickly break it apart to bind the hands and feet of everyone present to keep them from moving.

"Blizzard, come look at this." Midoriya then caught her attention. The woman turned around to see him looking down at the table.

"What's wrong?" She asked, taking a gander down at the object. On it was a map of the Tokyo metropolitan area. Complete with roadways, train lines and everything. But there was one thing that stood out to her the most. And that was the three locations that were circled in red marker.

"The Tokyo Skytree, Shibuya Station and the Ginza shopping district." Midoriya looked over the map some more. Trying to figure out why those places in particular were highlighted. He then noticed something else at the top of the map, a date and time. More specifically, today's date. With the time written on them being one a.m. Which was only about forty minutes away if the clock on the nearby wall was correct.

Suddenly the realization hit him. These weren't just random places, these were targets. Targets that were famous and well populated areas. It was a Saturday night, meaning that a number of people would be out and about. Especially in these areas.

Blizzard seemed to make the same connection in her head and turned her focus back to the group of criminals. "What are you planning? What's going to happen at one a.m.?!" She demanded

"Why don't you use that powerful quirk of yours to make us talk?" One of them said smugly. "That's what people like you do usually do to us, right?"

Midoriya wanted to say something to counter that statement. But he quickly remembered who he was dealing with. These people were radicals. Already so far gone that any explanation on how they weren't those types of people would've been an exercise in futility.

Just before they could ask another question, the entire building shook.

***Boom!***

-(o)-

_~A Few Minutes Earlier~_

It took the second team barely a minute to subdue the remaining members on their half of the floor. Just like before, their temporary victory had been a bit too easy for Tokage's liking. But she wasn't the type of person to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"Ember, you guys over there?!" The voice of Midnight shouted from beyond the doorway dividing the two halves of the floor.

"Yeah, we have this half handled. What about you?!"

"We're good!" Edgeshot was the one to reply.

With the third floor now effectively cleared, all that was left was the top. From what they knew, Midoriya and Blizzard were already up there. And with those it was only a matter of time before they would all be able to meet up again. Tokage had no clue how long they had been inside the warehouse. In her mind it only seemed like a few minutes. But maybe that was just all the adrenaline pumping through her system.

"Midnight!" The green haired girl then shouted.

"Sets-Lizardy, are you okay?!"

"I'm fine. What about you?!"

"A couple of bruises, but I'm all good." The "R-Rated" heroine reassured her. For whatever reason, Tokage felt the need to see the woman with her own eyes. She was more than a bit worried about her potential future step-mom, especially after the chaos that happened on the first floor. So now was as good a time as any to do that.

"I'll be right back." She said towards her group, not waiting for a response.

"Be quick." One of the officers simply responded.

The group watched as Tokage passed through the doorway. But at that moment, Ember noticed something. The second the girl's foot passed beyond the boundary a light suddenly flickered. It was then that the '_flame control'_ user spotted a small black box on the ceiling. In the span of about half a second, she was able to put two and two together. '_A wall charge!'_

The part time firefighter's feet began moving towards Tokage before her mind could process what was going on. "Tokage, watch out!"

What happened next was a complete blur. A loud boom. A flash of light. An intense heat. And the feeling of the ground underneath their feet violently shaking. In an instant, everyone close by was thrown back by the shockwave.

"Ugh...what the fuck?" Tokage groaned out as she quickly tried to reorient herself. A moment ago, she was standing on her feet. But now she was laying on the ground with an unfamiliar weight on her chest. Her ears were ringing, and there was a weird throbbing sensation on the left side of her head. The green haired girl opened her eyes to get a better view of her surroundings. And when she did, her heart almost stopped.

Laying on top of her was Ember. But there was a lot more to it than that. From where she was positioned, Tokage could see that the entirety of the woman's back was now covered in what appeared to be third degree burns. Her clothes and hair were completely singed and there was smoke emanating from her body.

"Ember!" The girl shouted as she immediately readjusted her body to support her weight.

"That...was a close one." The '_flame control'_ user said weakly. "A split second later and I wouldn't have been able to limit the flames."

Instantly Tokage's mind became static. That was it. That could've been it for her. She didn't even notice whatever it was that went off before moving through the doorway. But if it wasn't for Ember jumping to her rescue, she would've been done for.

A million things were flying through her head right now as she tried to rationalize the sight before. Ember quite literally just saved her life. Not only hers, but everyone in the room.

'_No…'_

"Setsuna, are you-" The girl didn't even register Midnight before the black haired woman was right next to her. From the "R-Rated" heroine's perspective, the first thing she noticed were the injuries to Ember's backside. But not only that, the entire left side of her niece's head was singed. Even her hair had been burned off.

"Is everyone alright?!" Edgeshot shouted as he also approached the scene.

"I'm fine." Yanagi groaned out after peeling herself off the nearby wall. As well as all the other officers.

"Ember, Ember, come on, talk to me!" The green haired teen began shouting at her savior. This was too much, injuries like this were way too much for her handle. Even her basic knowledge of first aid was practically useless in this situation.

"Those injuries are serious." The masked hero commented. "We need to get her out of here!"

The group began scrambling to get themselves together after the blast, but that was the last thing on Tokage's mind right now. With these injuries, moving the woman recklessly was too much of a risk.

'_I can use my quirk to safely move her outside, but that's not enough.'_ She thought to herself.

As if on cue, two figures came flying through the newly blasted hole in the roof. Those being Midoriya and Blizzard.

"Is everyone alright down- Ozehana-chan!" The '_psychokinesis'_ user shouted upon seeing the state that her agency partner was in. Quickly rushing to her side.

"What happened?!" Midoriya followed up, trying to get a good assessment of the situation.

"..my fault." Tokage said in a low tone.

"Huh?"

"This is my fault…." She repeated.

The look on his girlfriend's face was one that sent a chill down Midoriya's spine. He had never seen that kind of expression from Tokage before.

Before anyone could say a word, Blizzard took command of the situation. There was a lot on her mind right now with the information that her and Midoriya just learned. And with the injury to Ember, time was of the essence. "Everyone go outside and re-group! Skywalker, take care of Ember and get her back to Watanabe's vehicle. Be careful not to move her too much. I'll head back up to the top floor and grab the people up there. The rest of you take these bastards outside and prepare to move. Our job isn't done yet!"

Midoriya hesitated for a brief moment before using his quirk to grab a hold of both Ember and Tokage. The latter looked as if she didn't even hear a word of what their mentor just said. His instincts were telling him that he needed to comfort her to some degree. But that was going to have to take a back seat.

Yanagi and Midnight also noticed this, but they decided to leave it to Midoriya for the moment.

* * *

In a matter of minutes, the majority of the raid team was back outside and putting all of the detained criminals up against a wall. Surprisingly, the only casualty they had suffered so far was Ember. But that was still far more than what they would've liked.

"Ember, come on!" The green haired girl repeated for the fourth time. Ever since being moved outside, she hadn't left the woman's side for a second. Tokage had never really felt guilt before, aside from the situation back at the camp. But right now that was the only emotion going through her head.

"One of the detectives went to grab a first aid kit." Midoriya told her while keeping the woman's body stabilized above the ground as best he could. He was also concerned about the burn to the left side of his girlfriend's face. But she seemed to be perfectly fine at the moment.

"Lizardy…" The '_flame control'_ user said weakly after finally opening her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm here!" The girl grabbed her hand.

"You're...alright, thank goodness."

"Ember, I'm sorry! I-I should've been paying more attention!"

"Don't…" *cough* "...don't worry about it."

"Ember, try to relax." Midoriya then said. "Your injuries...don't try and move right now."

The woman gave a slight nod in his direction before turning her head back towards Tokage. At least now her vision was starting to clear up a bit. "Your face…." Her tone sounded concerned.

"I'm fine, it'll heal up." She reassured her.

The black haired woman paused for a second as she seemed to think about her next words. Her mouth briefly opened before closing. And then mustard up the strength to open it once more. "I guess...I was finally able to repay that debt I owed your mom."

"What?" The girl visibly paused. What was she talking about? Why did the woman suddenly mention her mother? Did she know her? No, that was impossible. Ember was only a few years older than her, probably around the same age as Nanao. Was she delirious? That had to be it. She definitely just lost a lot of blood.

"Listen, I'll be fine. Don't worry about me. Just make sure that you get the job done." She then turned back over to Midoriya. "Thanks greenbean, for helping me out like this."

"You're gonna be fine, I promise." Was all he could really say.

A few seconds later, a team of detectives and officers carrying a first aid kit and a stretcher came and started treating the woman's injuries. All the two greenettes could do was standby and watch as she was transported away toward the main vehicle.

"Setsuna…" Midoriya then turned to the girl who looked as if she was about to cry.

"I'm fine." She said rather unconvincingly. "We need to help out the others."

The boy took a moment to simply stare at her before deciding to just take her at her word. They would have more than enough time to talk about this later. Right now, there was another issue to handle.

Just then, the rest of the team along with Hawks and Detective Watanabe came sprinting down the pathway in between the buildings. "Everyone, we have a situation!"

"What's wrong?" Edgeshot called out.

"This whole thing was a damn diversion!" Snatch replied.

"What?"

Blizzard, who just arrived after securing the rest of the captives decided to fill in the blanks. "He's right. Me and Skywalker found out right before that last explosion. They knew that we were coming ahead of time."

"How?" Yanagi questioned.

"No clue."

"Doesn't matter." Hawks interjected. "We just got done interrogating a few of the guys that were trying to make a break for it. Apparently their job was to keep us here while the rest of their group carried out phase two of their plan."

"Phase two?"

"They wouldn't tell us what it was though." The lipless teen clicked his teeth.

"We know what it is!" Midoriya suddenly announced.

"Tell us."

The green haired boy spent the next few seconds explaining what him and Blizzard had found in that room on the top floor. The map, the writing on it, everything. As they listened on, the others wasted no time in filling in the missing pieces.

"We have to put a city-wide alert on the '_HN'_!" Midnight stated. All of the places mentioned were densely populated areas. And since it was Saturday night, they were sure to be filled with people right about now.

"There's another thing." Watanabe continued. "We just got word that a train heading for Shibuya station was hijacked. There are civilians on board that have been taken hostage."

"Alright here's the plan!" Blizzard announced. "We have about twenty-five minutes left to work with before all hell breaks loose. Me, Skywalker and Emily will go intercept the train before it reaches the station. Hawks, Tsukuymi and Lizardy will head to the Skytree and handle the situation over there. And Mudman, Snatch, Edgeshot and Midnight will head over to the Ginza shopping district."

"We'll take a couple of cars over to the shopping district since that will be faster. The rest of you will have to travel by air. I'll put out a police alert along the way."

"That's fine." The rest nodded.

"Evacuation and capture is top priority. The minute you see something wrong, take care of it. There's no room for error."

"Yes sir!"

Hawks then made his way over to Tokoyami and Tokage. "I'll carry you guys over there with my feathers. I'm the fastest and you need to save your energy."

"Right." The two nodded.

With that, the group immediately split up and went their separate ways. Midoriya and Tokage shared a brief glance with one another. A wordless gesture that practically screamed "be careful" based on the look in their eyes. As much as they would've loved a break from all the chaos, time was money right now. And a lot of lives were at stake.

"We're gonna have to kick it into high gear for this one." Blizzard looked to the "Dynamic Duo" of 1-B. "There's no time to wait up."

"We'll be fine." Yanagi answered as they all zoomed through the air in the direction of the train station.

With everything that was going, there was only one thought on Midoriya's mind right now. '_This is going to come down to the wire.'_

* * *

**A/N: Well, that was certainly a mess, wasn't it? Like I said before, the raid mission was going to be split into two parts. This part was a bit more of a Tokage focus, the next chapter is going to be mainly from the perspective of Midoriya. That's why he hasn't played as big of a role so far. We're also going to get more Honenuki and Tokoyami as well. How do you guys think the rest of the mission is going to go? Will our heroes be able to save the day?**

**1\. The whole Ember thing is going to be used as a character building moment for Tokage. I have an idea for her and this is going to serve as the catalyst for it. It's also setting up an overdue conversation for the two of them that's been hinted at for a while. Do you guys think that Ember will be okay? What will become of her?**

**2\. The quirk suppressing bullets will come into play in the next chapter as well. I gave everyone a copout since they aren't the finished product. So anyone who does happen to get hit by them will get their powers back. I briefly mentioned that the whole Yakuza raid was going to take place the morning of, so I'll touch on that before we close out this part of the story. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review!**


	45. Raid: Part 2

_~Tokyo Skytree~_

Thanks to Hawks, the bird themed hero along with Tokage and Tokoyami were able to reach the Tokyo Skytree in almost record time. Once they were at the tower they took a moment to assess the situation. The streets below were being evacuated and there was a large number of police blocking off the area surrounding the building.

"What's the situation?" Hawks calmly asked the police lieutenant who was busy directing everyone on the ground.

"We were somehow able to clear out everyone in the surrounding area and the bottom section of the building. But these terrorist fellows have the observation deck completely locked down. We sent a team up there a few minutes ago but they got taken down and are also being held captive."

"I see."

'_Dammit.'_ Tokage clicked her teeth. The situation was not good at all. She had no clue how many people were trapped inside the observation deck, but she knew that the place could hold up to two thousand people.

"We checked the security cameras and there's only about eighty people inside from what we could see. That's including the team that we sent up there." The lieutenant continued.

"The explosives?" Tokoyami then asked.

The police officer's face shifted to a dark expression before answering. "They're placed all over the building. We've only located two stashes so far. And they have timers on them."

"What about backup?"

"Best Jeanist and Kamui Woods are on the way. But they're still about ten minutes out."

That made this situation even worse. They only had about fifteen minutes left before the bombs were set to go off. And it wasn't like they had time to wait around for any other heroes to arrive. Seeing as there were no other options, Hawks turned towards the students.

"Alright, here's the plan." He began. "It's on us to take care of this. We won't be able to stop those bombs, so all we can do is subdue the criminals and get those hostages out of there. I know what Tokoyami-kun is capable of. But do you think that you'll be able to scoop people up out of there while I serve as a diversion?"

"You can count on me." Tokage said confidently. With as much as she has been training, there was little doubt in her mind that she could get everyone to safety.

"Alright, we're only gonna have one shot at this. So let's make it count."

"Yes sir!"

"**Black Fallen Angel!"** Tokoyami shouted as he summoned '_dark shadow'_ and formed it around his body to create a pair of wings on his back. While at the same time, Tokage split her body up into ten pieces.

With no hesitation, the three flew straight up to the observation deck. Once they had a good view of what was going on inside, they could see all of the hostages on their knees with multiple men dressed in black walking around the floor.

Hawks wasted no time in getting their attention by crashing through the far side of the building and immediately sent his feathers around the room. The Derelicta members were obviously stunned by this, but recovered fast enough to open fire on him.

"Tokage-san!" Tokoyami shouted as the two of them crashed through the window on the opposite side.

"Got it!"

"Heroes?!" One of the women said with a wobbly smile on her face.

Under normal circumstances Tokage would've taken the time to make some sort of cheesy comment about being here to save the day. But now was not the time for that. Instead, the girl went right into action by splitting her body up even further and using her pieces to grab as many people she could. Once she had a firm grasp of about twenty five hostages, she carried them all out of the building and dropped them back onto the ground.

"Sorry for the rough landing. Hurry up and get to safety!" She apologized without even waiting for a response.

The moment she returned to the observation deck, she was met with the sight of Tokoyami using his quirk to cause as much chaos as he could for the Derelicta members. He was using '_dark shadow'_ to smack away people left and right. All while using the shadow spirit to shield himself from gunfire.

'_Bird-man sure knows how to hold his own. But I already knew that after what happened back at the camp.'_

Seeing as the biggest problem right now was dealing with the members, the green haired girl jumped into the battle. "**Scale Storm!"** She announced while using her super move to surround the group of men closest to the elevator. The next few minutes were all but one giant blur as the girl constantly used her quirk to avoid getting shot. Which was a lot easier said than done.

Unfortunately that's when things took a turn for the worst. Across the room, behind one of the pillars, Tokage caught a glimpse of a Derelicta member taking aim at her classmate.

"Tokoyami, behind you!" She tried to warn him.

"Wha-"

"Have a load of this, you quirky bastard!" The man shouted.

***Bang!***

The sound of the gunshot echoed throughout the area and the first thing Tokage saw was Tokoyami hit the ground. Followed by '_dark shadow'_ immediately disappearing. The girl instantly abandoned what she was doing and sent every available piece that she had flying towards the man. Assaulting with an absolutely devastating bearrage of fury.

Once the man was out cold, the girl put herself back together and rushed over to the boy's side. "Tokoyami!"

"I'm fine." The boy grimaced. "It was only my arm."

"Dammit!" She cursed. This may have only been a temporary thing, but now that Tokoyami was out of commission they just lost most of their firepower.

The girl looked up across the room to see that Hawks was still flying around while trying to avoid getting hit himself. She had no clue how much time was left before things were to go belly-up. But they needed to handle this now and get everyone to safety.

However, the girl realized that she now had a small window of opportunity. Pretty much all of the members in their half of the observation deck were already dealt with thanks to the bird-headed boy. And the rest were too preoccupied with Hawks to even notice what had happened. With this, the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user decided that now was the time to make her move.

She sprinted towards the battle at full speed before separating herself and taking aim at every one of the men and women who still had yet to notice her approach. "**Scale Dash: Scattershot!"**

In a wild twist of events, instead of aiming at their heads Tokage chose the more questionable route and flung her pieces full force into the groins of every last one of the members. They all let out a series of pained groans and coughs before Hawks took the opportunity to finish them off. Using his feathers, he sent them all into a nearby pillar and knocked most of them out.

"Thanks Lizardy, it was getting kind of dodgy there for a second." The soon-to-be number two hero thanked her.

"You damn bastards…" One of the women grunted out. It doesn't matter what happens...you still won't be able to stop us from succeeding her today."

"Oh, is that right?" The girl shot back.

"You only have about a minute before this whole tower comes crashing down...idiots"

Everyone looked at the large, digital clock on the nearby wall to see that the quirkless woman was indeed telling the truth. Wait, that much time already passed? How? They couldn't have been fighting for more than a few minutes. Maybe all the adrenaline rushing through their systems was enough to distract them.

"Get everyone the hell out of here!" Hawk shouted before activating his '_fierce wing'_ and scooping up most of the remaining hostages and unconscious Derelicta members in the observation deck.

Of course Tokage was impressed by the sheer range and control the blonde haired man had over his quirk. Especially since it was like hers, but on a completely different level. But she had to push those thoughts to the side for now.

The girl dashed across the room and scooped the remaining hostages along with Tokoyami before flying through the previously created hole in the glass window.

"I'm sorry, Tokage-san. I wished not to be a burden on you." The raven-headed teen said.

"Make it up to me later, let's just get the hell out of here!"

Once everyone was outside the building, they kept moving as far away as they could as fast as they could. If there was one thing that Tokage had going for her, it was her speed. And speed it exactly what saved her and everyone else's asses when the bombs inside the building finally went off.

***Boom!***

The ensuing shockwave was enough to rattle the bones in her body and make her momentarily lose focus on what she was doing. But not enough to where she would let go of the hostages, even with the ridiculous amount of yelling and fidgeting everyone was doing. The girl turned her floating head around to see the entire tower collapsing and her heart practically dropped into her stomach.

'_We made it just in time.'_ She breathed out a momentary sigh of relief.

It was obvious to Tokage that the chaos of this night was going to be the topic of conversation for a very long time. But right now, she chose to think about that later. She just hoped that everyone else in their group was okay.

* * *

_~Railway Near Shibuya Station~_

It took roughly five minutes for Midoriya, Yanagi and Blizzard to catch up to the train that was heading for Shibuya station.

They had a little over fifteen minutes to take down the Derelicta members, evacuate the hostages and find a way to stop the train before all hell broke loose. And needless to say, that was a tall order for such a short window of time. It was safe to assume that there was a bomb planted somewhere on the train, but where it might be was a complete mystery to the telekinetic trio.

The first thing Blizzard did was do a quick flyby outside of the vehicle to assess the situation before returning to the other two.

"They have fourteen members total from what I can tell. Roughly two in each car. But I couldn't see inside the front."

"What about civilians?" Midoriya asked.

"Around thirty."

"So what's the plan?" Yanagi questioned.

Blizzard took a brief second to weigh their options before deciding on what the best course of action for them. The hostages inside were top priority. But they needed to deal with the villains first. "Okay, here's how we'll play it. We're going to go car by car starting from the back. They may be armed, but we have the advantage in firepower. I'll take point and deal with them while you two get the people out of there. We don't have enough time, so just drop them off on the side of the railway for now."

"I can move most of the people on my own, Reiko-san can you watch my back?" Midoriya turned his head towards the grey haired teen.

"You can count on me."

"Alright, let's make this happen."

Like they planned, the trio pulled back a bit and placed themselves on opposite sides of the rear train car next to the doors. Inside, they could see everyone crouched down on the ground with their hands over their heads. Somehow they hadn't been spotted yet, which was going to work to their advantage perfectly.

Without a moment to waste, Blizzard used her quirk to force the door open and instantly flew towards the two criminals inside. Forcing them to the ground before they even knew what was happening.

"A hero, what the hell?" One of the men grimaced.

"I thought the others were keeping them occupied?" The other questioned.

"Oh my god, is that Blizzard?"

"Thank goodness!" A woman cowering on the far side of the car sighed in relief.

It was now Midoriya and Yanagi's turn to make their move. After opening the other door, the two teenagers quickly flew inside and did their best to reassure the captives.

"Everything's going to be okay. We're here to help you! We're going to drop you all off outside." The green haired boy said in a commanding voice.

"Please wait for the police to arrive after we do so." Yanagi stoically followed up.

Everyone seemed to understand the instructions well enough and allowed the trio to evacuate them off the train. Midoriya put all of his previous training to use and levitated the hostages off the ground and began guiding them outside. Luckily there were only ten people in this car, so it wasn't too tall of an order for him. And like clockwork, he simply placed them on the ground outside the track before moving on.

"How many of you are there on this train?" Blizzard demanded answers. The two criminals simply chose to stay silent instead of responding. Which irritated her to no end. Seeing as they didn't feel like cooperating, the green haired woman ripped one of the poles from the top of the train car off of its housing and wrapped it around them.

"Alright, let's move on to the next car."

Like a well-oiled machine, the trio repeated the same tactic for the next four train cars. Meeting little to no resistance in the process. Everything was going well, but they still had another five cars to move through and only had about ten minutes left before they would arrive at the station.

"This is taking too long." Blizzard huffed after knocking out yet another Derelicta member who refused to talk.

"Why don't we just split up?" Midoriya suggested. "We can cover a lot more ground if you take one car while Reiko-san and I take another."

"Are you sure?" The woman replied. She wasn't entirely opposed to the idea, but it was risky. They had been doing a fine enough job so far. And the last thing she wanted to do was risk either of them getting hurt right now.

"We can handle it." Yanagi reassured her.

All Blizzard did was give them a nod before flying out of the doorway. "I'll move on two cars ahead. Make things quick and meet me up at the front. I didn't get a clear view of the lead car, so I want all of us up there just in case."

"Got it!" The two teens told her.

Midoriya and Yanagi took a brief moment to adjust their strategy to account for the loss of firepower that they now had. Instead of one person holding the criminals down while the other evacuated the civilians, they would both take down the criminal before moving on.

The moment they came up on the next train car, Yanagi released the strap on her belt and levitated her mini-discs around her body in preparation for her attack. Both teens peeked through the nearest window and saw that unlike the previous cars, the two criminals inside were standing on opposite ends.

"I'll take the one on the far side, you handle the one next to the door." Midoriya ordered her. Since he was the faster out of the two, it only made sense for him to take the one furthest away.

"Okay."

With a quick nod, the green haired boy forced open the metal door and immediately flew inside the car, breezing past the first member. The criminal just had enough time to recognize this and aim his weapon at the boy, but Yanagi was able to bend her mini-discs around the corner and slam them full force into their head.

"What the hell?!" The other member turned around, only to receive a boot to the face courtesy of Midoriya. The impact was strong enough to send him flying back into the wall of the train car and he was down for the count.

"We're saved!" One of the hostages said in a joyous tone.

"Everyone, please remain calm!" Midoriya asked them as calmly as he could at the moment.

"Did you heroes take care of the bombs yet?" An older man with a thick mustache inquired.

"Bombs?" Both teens raised their eyebrows. Bombs with an '_s_', as in plural?

"These hooligans said that there was a bomb planted in each train car." The elderly man explained. "We don't know where they are. But they said that they were set to go off once we reached the station."

The two teens shared a quick glance with one another upon hearing this information. They knew something like that had to be the case. But to know that each car had explosives in it made the situation a lot more dire.

'_This is bad.'_ Midoriya thought. '_If every car has explosives in it, we'll need to find a way to remove all of them in time. And we're already cutting it close as it is. Even if one of these things blows, it might destroy the entire train.'_

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye Midoriya spotted movement behind Yanagi. The girl was standing in the middle of the train car, but the door connecting it to the other one opened up.

"Who the fuck are you?!" The Derelicta member shouted upon seeing the situation in front of her. The woman didn't even hesitate to aim her weapon at the girl.

Midoriya's body practically moved on its own and the boy was somehow able to close the distance between him and Yanagi and put himself in front of the girl who was a little bit too slow to react.

***Bang!* **The sound of two gunshots echoed through the car. Along with a few screams from the bystanders.

The only thing Yanagi caught in her peripheral field of vision was Midoriya falling to the ground. Her eyes then darted upwards to see the person holding the gun in front of the door. The world around her seemed to slow down and the grey haired girl instantly felt her emotions flare up at the sight in front of her.

'_Izuku-kun!'_

The girl threw all caution to the wind and sent her hover-disc flying towards the criminal at lightning speed. Making instant contact with her chest with enough force to leave no doubt that she was down for the count. The next thing she did was use her quirk to bring all of the criminal's weapons towards her and then sent them flying out of the train car door.

"Izuku-kun!" The '_poltergeist'_ user quickly dropped to her knees to check on her friend. But her heart stopped once she turned him over. One bullet was lodged in the center of Midoriya's vest while the other was dangerously close to his eye. But these didn't look like any ordinary bullets that she was aware of, they looked more akin to darts than anything else.

'_No...these are those quirk bullets.'_

"Ugh…" Midoriya groaned, letting the girl know that he was conscious at the very least.

"Izuku-kun, are you okay?" She asked in a frantic tone of voice.

"I'm fine. What about you?" He quickly replied. More concerned about her safety than his own. The only reason he might be conscious right now is because his helmet absorbed most of the impact. He quickly made a mental note to send Hatsume a birthday present for doing such a good job on his support item.

"I'm fine…b-but…Izuku-kun, try to use your quirk."

"What?"

"Your quirk." The girl repeated while removing the helmet off of his head. By some miracle, his face didn't have a single scratch on it. But that was only one of her main concerns right now. "These are the quirk bullets that the detective told us about."

The boy looked down at the one still lodged in his vest and immediately felt a sense of dread wash over his body. Did he just lose his quirk? He felt perfectly fine, but that wasn't enough to reassure his nerves at the moment. Midoriya quickly looked around and then noticed a small bag next to one of the hostages on the ground. He instantly tried to activate his power and by the grace of the universe, it lifted up off the ground just as he had hoped.

"I'm good. I can still use my quirk." He told her with a slight sigh. Much to Yanagi's own relief. To be perfectly honest, she didn't know what they were going to do if the boy suddenly lost his powers. Even if it was temporary, it would've too much of a problem to deal with right now. Especially by herself.

"We need to hurry up and get these guys out of here. We have to meet back up with Onee-chan."

All Yanagi could do was nod at the boy and do as he said. She had no clue how he could be so casual about getting shot. But they would need to save that conversation for later.

After finally securing the criminals and removing everyone off the train car, the telekinetic duo proceeded to make their way through the rest. Apparently, Blizzard had already taken care of most of them. So they only needed to deal with one more by themselves.

With about five minutes left to spare, the trio finally met back up on top of the lead car. And with a quick peek inside, they could see that the situation there was a lot worse than all of the others.

"Dammit. There's five of them in there." Blizzard clicked her teeth. On top of that, the train conductor was passed out on the ground surrounded by a not so subtle amount of blood.

"What do we do?" Yanagi looked to their mentor.

"We'll have to play this a bit differently than the other cars."

"I have a plan." Midoriya then suggested.

"What is it?"

"I'll use "_Palace of Inertia"_ to freeze everyone inside."

"But if you do that, then won't we be unable to move?"

"Actually, that's not the case." Yanagi told Blizzard.

"What?"

"We don't really know why, but I'm able to use my quirk even if Izuku-kun uses that move."

It was something the two students found out during one of their earlier training sessions last week. For some reason, Yanagi was able to use her quirk freely when trapped inside of Midoriya's super move. And the same also applied the other way around. The only exception was that Midoriya could move his body when he used his quirk on himself while she could only manipulate objects. The boy theorized that it had something to do with '_psycho-waves'_ but they were never able to figure it out completely.

Once again, Blizzard thought about it. But since they were now on a time crunch, she just had to trust her two pupils. She could see the train station rapidly approaching in the distance, and now was not the time to rethink their strategy.

"Alright, we have once chance at this. Izuku, you go first and use that move of yours. All we'll need is a few seconds."

Without so much as a word, the boy flew towards the door and used his power to pull it off its hinges. Creating enough of a distraction to catch the criminals off guard.

"Shit, they already made it this far!"

"Shoot that quirky bastard!"

"**Palace of Inertia!"**

Everything seemed to freeze inside of the train car and that was all that the other two needed to make their move. Upon entering, Blizzard felt like the air around her was frozen in ice. But since she was using her quirk on herself she was able to move with only a slight bit of resistance than normal.

'_I guess our quirks cancel each other out like this.'_ She surmised. The woman instantly ripped the guns of the criminal's hands and forced them to the ground. Giving Midoriya the chance to release his quirk.

"Don't bother trying to put up a fight!" Blizzard shouted. "Your weapons are gone and you're out matched.

"Is that so?"

"How do we disable the bombs on the train?!" Midoriya followed up with a question of his own.

"You don't, you quirky bastard."

"What?"

"The bombs have a timer set to blow as soon as we reach the station. Which will happen in about four minutes. And they'll go off if you try to move them. Assuming you can find them all in time." One of the men began laughing almost manically.

"Do you realize what you're doing?!" Midoriya then shouted. "Do you seriously not even care how many people could die because of this? Including yourselves!" Even though the boy could understand where they were coming from. It baffled him how they thought that this was any way to solve their problems with the world.

"As long as we kill as many quirky bustards like you two as possible, then our lives are but a small price to pay in the name of revenge. Try all you might, but I doubt even you two are powerful enough to stop this thing from going up in flames!"

Although Blizzard knew what Midoriya was trying to do, she was far beyond the point of trying to appeal to these people's sense of humanity. Now was not the time to try and reason with them.

"If that's the way you feel, then so be it…." All five Derelicta members were instantly forced together before the woman wrapped one of the metal pipes around them.

The trio wasted no time in removing everyone off the train and setting them down on the railway. Yanagi was the first to tend to the train conductor's wounds. Luckily, he was still breathing and they weren't in any fatal areas.

"Emily, stay with him and watch over these maniacs. If they try anything you have my permission to use force."

"Got it."

"What are we going to do about the train?" Midoriya asked Blizzard in a worried tone.

"There's no way to disable the bombs on board in time. We need to get it off the tracks before it reaches the train station."

"How are we-"

"Izuku…we're gonna have to use "_Overdrive"_. It's our only chance."

Midoriya paused momentarily as he absorbed his sister's words. He'll admit that they might have a shot at handling this if they used that technique. But even with the two of them together, would moving that train be possible? Furthermore, the backlash from it would be serious. If there were more Derelicta members around somewhere, they'd be done for.

The boy glanced towards the train which was getting further and further ahead of them with each passing second. As much as he hated to admit it, they had no other options. "Yeah...you're right."

"Emily, stay here and keep an eye out on everyone. Backup should be on the way soon." Blizzard then told the girl.

"Understood."

"Use this to help with the train conductor's injuries." Midoriya then removed his black overcoat and handed it to the girl so that she could use it as some sort of makeshift bandage. All he was left in now was the base layer of his hero costume.

With no time left, both Midoriya and Blizzard took in a deep breath before activating their quirks and forcing as much power out as possible. It was similar to riding a bike. Once you do it the first time, repeating the process was relatively easy.

"**Overdrive!"**

A wave of telekinetic power surged through the area before the two were finally ready to go. Yanagi and the others gazed upon their appearance to see two sets of glowing green eyes and floating hair. The tell-tale sign that they were now at maximum power. The girl couldn't help but liken it to one of those old era animes that she used to binge-watch as a kid.

"Let's go!" Was all Blizzard said before the two greenettes blasted off down the railway in the direction of the train, leaving Yanagi to take care of the rest.

-(o)-

'_Ten cars in total, each weighing roughly thirty tons or more. No matter how you split it, it's the most I've ever tried to lift at one time.'_ Blizzard thought to herself and then turned towards her brother. "We're only going to have one shot at this, so we need to make it count. We have about a minute before we reach the station."

"Understood!" Midoriya nodded. Once the two were right above the center car of the train, it was now time for them to go to work.

Using all of their might, the pseudo-siblings began pulling the vehicle upwards. On the initial push, they felt a good amount of resistance. But it was clear to them that moving all of it in one mass was possible.

"Thirty seconds. Come on Izuku, give it all you got!" The woman yelled at the top of her lungs.

"Nrgh...I know!"

The next attempt proved to be more fruitful as the two were able to get the vehicle off the railway. Bringing it up higher and higher with each passing second. But that was only part one of this reckless ass plan of theirs. The next was the most crucial.

With every available ounce of strength at their disposal, the two greenettes rocketed further and further into the night sky. High enough for everyone in the surrounding area to bear witness to this feat of strength. All while carrying the train above them. By a rough estimate, they were already a good two kilometers above the ground.

'_They were actually able to do it?'_ Yanagi stood in awe from where she was still standing on the railway. Something like could only be done by the two of them. She doubted that Tornado herself could even pull this off without help.

"We need to get higher!" Midoriya grimace. His head was already pounding and his eyes were burning.

"Ten seconds left! We're gonna have to throw it! Just launch it as far as you can!"

The two did exactly that and sent the train rocketing upwards at ridiculous speed. At this point, the both of them had a steady stream of blood leaking from their noses. Their eyes were blood red, the veins were beginning to pop out of their faces and it felt like their brains were playing pinball inside their skulls.

"Five seconds!" The woman shouted in a bloody tone.

"Argh!" The horrid wailing from Midoriya's mouth echoed throughout the sky. Sweat now pouring down his freckled face.

***Boom!***

A flash of light followed by a shockwave that would be enough to rattle even the sturdiest of buildings shook the area. Even the crowds of bystanders and onlookers on the ground had to brace themselves for safety. It only took a few seconds for the explosion to finally dissipate. But once it did, all that was left were a few small pieces of debris falling to the earth below. Nothing large enough to cause any serious damage.

"We...made...it." Midoriya huffed out. His body felt absolutely drained and his vision was beginning to fade in and out.

"Yeah...by the...skin of our teeth."

That was the last thing either one of them were able to say before passing out. They had certainly overdid with that little stunt of theirs. And now they didn't even have the energy to keep themselves awake. As the two began falling to the earth, the onlookers close enough to get a good view of the action began yelling in horror. Thankfully, someone was able to get to them in time before they hit the ground.

"**Will o' Wisps!"** Yanagi's mini-discs buried themselves in Midoriya and Blizzard's clothing. The girl being just fast enough to catch up to them.

"They're both out cold." She said to herself, finally noticing the state that they were in. She knew that "_Overdrive"_ was one of those last resort types of techniques, only to be used in an emergency. But seeing how ragged the two looked didn't ease her nerves at all.

Once they were safely on the ground, the grey haired teen began checking them. The train conductor was fine since the bullet wounds weren't in any fatal areas. And the Derelicta members weren't going anywhere any time soon.

In the distance she could hear the sounds of a police helicopter rushing to their location, which meant that help was on the way.

'_We were able to make it just in time and saved a lot of lives today. Thank goodness….'_

* * *

_~Ginza Shopping District~_

"Everyone, please remain calm and move in an orderly fashion!" Midnight directed the citizens as the evacuation of the Ginza shopping district was already underway. Like they expected, the streets were full of late night party-goers and tourists.

Thanks to the alert that was put out by the police, all of the nearby heroes and law enforcement agents were quick to get to begin moving people out of the area. While the police were mainly in charge of crowd control, the heroes and Honenuki were scrambling to find where the bomb, or bombs, were located.

"Air-Jet, do you see anything yet?" Edgeshot radioed to the "Buster Hero".

"Nothing from what I can see." The man responded while continuing to fly above the streets.

Despite the evacuation of the area moving at a decent pace, they were still on a time crunch. At most, they had about ten minutes left before the clock hit one. And it was painfully clear to heroes that they were more than likely _not_ going to get everyone to safety in time before the bombs went off. And to make matters worse, there were no signs of any Derelicta members at all.

"Enigma, Mt. Lady, how about you guys?"

"Nothing yet." The veteran member of Team Idaten stated for both of them as she used her expansion quirk to get a better view of the area. "This area is too big, and we're spread thin enough as it is."

As the search continued on, things were starting to look more and more grim for the heroes. They were running out of time and it looked like they wouldn't be able to locate the explosives before it was too late.

"Honenuki-san!" A familiar voice called out to the lipless team. The boy turned around and locked eyes with none other than Ochako Uraraka. The brunette girl from 1-A who reminded him a bit of Komori. But what he did find the most interesting was the new support item that she was wearing. The best way that he could describe it was a jetpack constructed to look like one of those old era drones. She was probably using her quirk to help her fly with it.

"Uraraka-san, I didn't expect to see you here." Honenuki answered back.

"I'm doing an overnight shift for my work study. Pretty much all of Team Idaten is here besides Tensei-san."

"Make sense."

"What are you doing here?"

"We were doing a raid on the guys who planted the bombs before finding out their main plan."

"Seriously?" The girl raised her eyebrows. She was wondering why Tokoyami was so quiet about his work study for the last few weeks. But now it made sense as to why the raven-headed teen was spending so much time with the 1-B students.

"Yeah."

After getting the green light from Snatch, the two went off a bit further down the road to see if there were any stragglers left behind. Luckily, most of the main road and the connecting streets had already been cleared. But now they only had about six minutes before all hell was sure to break loose. Once they decided to make their way back to the others, the call came in over Honenuki's earpiece.

"Everyone, we appear to have located the site. It's a parking lot on the northern end of the road." Air-Jet announced over the communications relay.

By sheer luck, Honenuki, Uraraka, Snatch, Midnight and a few other police officers were close enough to the aforementioned parking lot to make it there in less than a minute. And once they did, they found that the situation was much worse than what they expected.

The parking lot was filled with numerous black cars with missing license plates on them scattered throughout the area. Out of thirty or so vehicles, fifteen of them fit that description. And they were spread out pretty far. Their fears were confirmed when one of the police dogs started going crazy as it passed by each one of them.

'_Shit.'_ The lipless teen clicked his teeth.

"If e-each one of these cars is filled with explosives…." Uraraka shakily started while looking around.

"Then this whole area including the next few blocks will go up in smoke." Midnight completed her thought.

What were they going to do? There was no way that they were going to be able to move all of these in time. Even with Mt. Lady and Enigma, it was way too dangerous. Especially in such a populated area like the one they were currently in. Right now, the group was regretting not bringing either Blizzard or Midoriya along with them. But even then, there probably wasn't a lot either of them could do.

Suddenly, Honenuki sprinted past the heroes and police and went straight to the entrance of the parking lot. The lipless teen then placed his hands on the ground and instantly activated his quirk.

"Mudman, what are you doing?!" Snatch called out to the boy.

"I'm gonna sink this entire parking lot!" He shouted back. "We can't move these cars in time, so I'll just have to get them as far underground as possible. There's no subway lines in this area, so we should be good!"

The group paused as they considered the boy's plan. Honenuki's quirk could cover quite a large area based on what they had seen in the past. And this parking lot was definitely within his range. But despite that, would he be able to get them far enough underground in time? And how much would that really help in this situation?

With no real options left available to them, the group of heroes collectively decided to put their faith in him. "Everyone clear the area! Get as far away from here as you can!"

"Uravity, get as many people as you can to safety!" Midnight told the brunette student.

"R-right!" Was the girl's quick reply before pressing the switch on her new "jetpack" and hovering over to the people nearest to her.

Now that he didn't have to worry about any bystanders getting caught up in the mess, Honenuki began pushing his quirk to the absolute limit of his ability. He much preferred manipulating smaller areas where he could exercise the most control over. But now wasn't the time for complaining.

"**Marianas Trench!"**

Before their very eyes, everyone watched as the entire parking lot turned into one gigantic pit of quicksand. The cars instantly began sinking into the void along with the nearby streetlights and other various objects.

'_Wow…'_ Uraraka couldn't help but gawk at the display of power. '_I almost forgot that Honenuki-san was a recommended student too. With guys like Midoriya-san and Todoroki-kun, it's easy to forget that he's one of the strongest first year students.'_

"How much time left?!" The boy called out.

"Two minutes!" Snatch answered, refusing to leave his pupil just in case he needed help.

'_I need to go deeper. C'mon Juzo, you can do better than this!'_ The boy mentally motivated himself.

The furthest he's ever gone with something like this was thirty meters under the ground. But right now he needed to push far beyond that. With each passing second, he could feel the cars sinking further and further into the mud. Unfortunately for him, his limit stopped at the hundred meter mark.

With no more room left to budge, the ashen skinned teen reversed his quirk and hardened the ground back to its original state. He had no clue whether or not that was a good idea. But the only thing he was concerned with now was getting the hell out of here.

"I got you!" Uraraka suddenly appeared above him before grabbing both him and Snatch. The second their hands made contact, Honenuki felt his body become noticeably lighter than it usually was. He knew about her quirk, the ability to completely nullify an object's gravity. But this was way different than being on the wrong end of Midoriya's telekinesis.

As fast as she could, Uraraka hovered over behind a nearby building and everyone braced for the impending blast.

"Five, four, three two…."

***Boom!***

Despite being completely submerged underground, the explosives were still strong enough to blow the outer layer of the parking lot into the sky. And the ensuing debris lodged itself into some of the nearby buildings. But in terms of how bad things could've been, this was a far better alternative.

"Mudman...you did it." Snatch said proudly to the boy who looked like he was on the verge of passing out.

"I guess...that's what they mean...by going "_Plus Ultra"_, huh?" He said through labored breaths.

"Great work." Midnight congratulated him with a pat on the shoulder. She was more than impressed by how well her student handled that. Manipulating an area over one hundred and fifty meters wide was no small feat.

"Thanks." Was all Honenuki managed to say before falling unconscious. Allowing the darkness to overtake his vision.

* * *

_~Tokyo University~_

"Well Rogue...it looks like this grand plan of yours went up in a puff of smoke." The individual known as Nitro said as he watched the live news feed on his computer.

"_That appears to be the case. However, we will have more opportunities in the future to continue our crusade. Think of this as a minor setback."_

"So...what do you plan on doing now?"

"_All of us who went to the Ginza district were able to escape long before the heroes showed up. So for now, me and the remaining members will go into hiding."_

"Smart move." The man known as Nitro nodded. "Since we're on the subject, I think it's best that we cut ties here. Things are still going to get pretty hot for you and your group. And I'm not looking to get caught up in that. Consider this the end of our arrangement."

"_I expected as much."_ The leader of Derelicta said in a calm tone. One that made Nitro's skin crawl. "_But yes, it would be best for us to part ways. I do hope that we can resume business once we reestablish ourselves in the future."_

"Don't count on it." Was the last thing Nitro said before pressing the red button on his burner phone, taking the battery out of it and throwing it into the trash can.

As the bomb maker turned his attention back to the computer screen, he couldn't help but feel quite a bit of relief at the footage of a certain green haired boy he knew being carried off to safety. Even with the dye-job, he could tell that freckled face from a mile away.

'_I wasn't expecting you of all people to be there, Midoriya-kun. But I'm glad that you were able to make it out alive.'_

The next thing Nitro did was walk over to his bedroom closet and dig out a small white box tucked behind the shelf. He ran his finger over it for a brief moment before opening it up to reveal its contents.

'_Temporary or not, these quirk bullets are way too valuable to not look into.'_ He thought while further inspecting one of the bullets. '_Once I find out exactly what these things are made of, I'll have no trouble producing them myself. I can't exactly let an opportunity like this slip by me.'_

Suddenly, a knock from the door startled the bomb maker enough to make him fumble the box in his hands.

"Hey, Unohana-kun! Are you in there? Are you even awake?!" An all too familiar voice called out to him.

"S-sorry, just give me a second!" The boy slightly stumbled before placing the item back into its casing and shoving it behind the shelf. Once he had everything in order, the bomb maker recomposed himself and went over to answer the door.

"Nanao-san, what can I do for you?" Sasuke Unohana said to his unexpected guest with a kind smile on his face.

"I'm bored~." A slightly red faced Nanao Tokage groaned while draping her arms over the boy's shoulders. The short haired woman looked a bit wobbly and it was impossible not to smell the alcohol on her breath.

"Nanao-san, are you drunk?"

"Only a little." She gave him a toothy grin. "All my friends are out on the town tonight and need someone to keep me company."

"I think you need to go to bed."

"Care to join me?" She teased while tracing her fingers on his cheek.

"I d-don't think that's a good idea." The quirkless teen madly blushed. "Besides...a-aren't I a little bit too young for you?"

"Only by like what, three years and some change? Besides _-*hiccup*-_ I wouldn't mind cozying up with someone as cute as you. Has anyone ever told you that you have some really pretty eyes?"

All Unohana could do was let out an awkward sigh. Ever since meeting this girl, Nanao Tokage made it a point to come over to his place anytime she was feeling bored. He was glad that the girl was treating him just like any other person and not shunning him because of his quirkless status. Which wasn't really something that he was used to. But even he had his limits.

"I'll let you spend the night here so you can sleep off all the booze you've been drinking. I don't think it's a good idea to let you go wandering around like this."

"Yay!"

"_You_ can sleep on the bed. I've got an extra futon in my closet that _I_ can use."

"Aww~." The woman with the short green hair practically deflated and then pouted. "Fine...but one of these days I'm gonna get you to fall for my womanly charms."

"Whatever you say.…" He gave a quick laugh before guiding her over to his bed.

* * *

When Midoriya regained consciousness, the first thing that he noticed was the distinctive smell of the ocean breeze assaulting his senses. And upon opening his eyes, all he saw was a clear blue sky with a few fluffy clouds flying overhead. The green haired boy immediately sat up and tried to get a feel for his surroundings. But was truly baffled by what he saw.

'_Is this Dagoba Beach?'_ He wondered while looking around him. Sand, the ocean, gigantic mounds of trash neatly organized into blocks and pillars. Yeah, there was no doubt about it. This was definitely Dagoba Beach, but why the hell was he here?

"Hey twerp, up here!" A familiar voice called to him from above.

The boy quickly upturned his gaze and his eyes blew open at the sight before him. "Tatsumaki?!"

"Who the hell gave you permission to address me by my first name, brat?" The diminutive green haired woman replied in an annoyed tone. She was floating a good forty meters in the air above the shoreline in what could only be described as a throne constructed from various pieces of trash from across the beach. Giving her an almost regal appearance.

'_Is this another dream? Did I pass out after we stopped the train?' _Midoriya thought.

"I assure you, this is no dream."

"What?" He responded. '_Wait, did she just read my mind?'_

"Have you seriously not figured this out by now? I _am_ the real Tatsumaki." She began explaining. "And this dump that we're currently occupying is something like your...mental sanctuary."

Okay, if Midoriya wasn't confused before he definitely was now. What did she mean that this wasn't a dream? He certainly wasn't awake right now. But something about this entire dreamscape of his did feel a bit...real.

"It'll be awhile before you regain consciousness after that little stunt you and Fubuki just pulled. But that just gives us more than enough time to handle some _long_ overdue business."

"W-what do you mean?" He replied. He didn't know why, by something about the aura that the green haired woman was emanating from her makeshift throne made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

"I think it's about time that the two of us have a little chat, Izuku Midoriya…."

* * *

**A/N: Well, quite a bit happened huh? I never intended on all of the Derelicta members to get captured when the mission was over. They'll be staying low for now, but we'll see them pop back up again before the story is over.**

**1\. I wanted everyone to have a moment while trying to save the day. Obviously they weren't going to make out of this without some damage, but I'd still chalk it up as an overall win. I even decided to throw Uraraka in here just because. I know a lot of people want her to be more involved in the story somehow. But like I said before, this is 1-B focus.**

**2\. What do you guys think about that little reveal towards the end? I'd like to think that it was fairly obvious that Unohana was Nitro. But a lot of people in the comments thought that it was still up in the air. I'll touch on that a bit more, especially during the cultural festival. But let's just say that his reasons for helping Derelicta weren't entirely selfish. Do you guys think that he'll ever be found out?**

**3\. The long awaited talk between Midoriya and Tatsunaki's will take place next chapter. It will be kind of short, but I think that it will do both of their characters justice. And let's just say that it won't be a very pleasant affair for the green haired boy.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review!**


	46. Towering Tornado!

"Y'know brat...there's quite a bit that I want to say to you." Tatsumaki said from atop the makeshift throne. Her face displaying what can only be described as nothing but contempt and pure annoyance.

"Wait a second!" Midoriya interjected. "What's going on here? What did you mean that this isn't a dream?"

Tatsumaki pinched the bridge of her nose before letting out a rather dramatic sigh. Despite knowing full well that she was going to have to give the boy some type of explanation as to the current situation. That didn't stop the woman from being annoyed by it.

"I'm going to make this as easy to understand as I can." She begrudgingly began. "When that All for One bastard stole my quirk and transferred it into you, part of my consciousness was retained within it. I have no clue how this happened, so don't bother asking me. But I've been "awake" inside your mind ever since the first time that you used "_Overdrive"_."

After absorbing those words, Midoriya was more convinced than ever that he was just having some sort of weird dream. There was no possible way that what this figment of his imagination was saying was true. It was impossible. Quirk transfer was one thing. But having that quirk retained the mind of its previous host was a little too far out there for him to believe.

"To prove this, let me ask you a couple of questions."

"Okay..." The boy nodded skeptically.

"Over the last couple of months, you've had quite a few mornings where you've woken up feeling exhausted for no real reason, right?"

"Yeah…"

"Well that's because I've been using your body every now and then when you fall asleep. It took some getting used to, but after the first few times I got acclimated pretty well."

"What?"

"You can ask Fubuki about it when you wake up. I told her not to tell you until after we had this talk of ours."

"I don't believe you."

"Then how about this? Did you ever wonder about how exactly you came up with "_Palace of Inertia"_? Well the short answer is that you didn't. _I'm_ the one who wrote it down in that notebook of yours. I decided to throw you a bone to see whether or not you could handle it."

Midoriya was about to respond to that claim, but hesitated. It was true that the boy had no idea when he even wrote that page down in his notebook. And the writing style was fairly different from his. Including the actual handwriting itself. But he always just assumed that it was because he must've been extremely tired when he thought it up.

Actually now that he thought about it, Fubuki's reaction to hearing about his super move was a bit odd. Especially since she flat out told him that it was the exact same move that her older sister created before she died. '_Wait, could she be telling the truth?'_

"Of course I am! What reason would I have to lie to a snot nosed brat like you? It would be a waste of energy."

Deciding to just roll with this for now, Midoriya chose to see what exactly this apparent apparition wanted from him. And hopefully, he would be able to get some more answers out of her. He'll just have to confirm these claims with Fubuki once he actually woke up. "So...what did you want to talk about?"

"For starters, I absolutely _hate_ the way that you've been misusing my quirk."

"What do you mean exactly?" He countered.

"You do realize that you're easily one of the strongest kids in your entire school, right? You may have only had this power for a little over a year. But in terms of ability, you should be way above your classmates. That should be obvious enough with the way that you handled Endeavor's brat and that Bakugou idiot."

"I wouldn't say all that..." A light blush appeared on the boy's face.

"Please." The green haired women scoffed. "You're already on sidekick level if you ask me. But for some reason you keep limiting yourself. You're supposed to be smart, so I thought that you'd find some more creative uses of '_psychokinesis'_ by now. But you just keep holding back so you don't show up your classmates."

"That's not true!"

"I know, I know, you don't want to come off as a showoff. Which I guess is fine. But have you ever considered that doing so was disrespectful to your classmates? How would they feel if they found out that you weren't going at a hundred percent each and every time while some of them struggled to keep up."

Midoriya was ready to counter the woman's statement, but she continued talking before he could get a word in.

"It's fine to take other people's feelings into account. But the world of heroics has no place for softness. You've been doing a decent job so far, but I need you to step your game up. Honestly, I blame Fubuki for coddling you so damn much up until this point."

Part of Midoriya felt like he just received a backhanded compliment from the woman. And he'll admit that she did have a point. But there was a lot more to it than that. "I'm just not that kind of person. I don't want to be like those people who use their quirks as a means to put themselves above others."

"I understand completely. With how you grew up, it's no wonder you think that way. But try to look at things from the other side of the aisle. You need to start getting even more serious than what you have been. You've been blessed with an S-rank psychokinetic quirk. One that's a game changer in any situation."

"S-rank?" Midoriya queried an eyebrow.

"It's how we measure quirks like ours. Me, you and Fubuki are all S-rank based on overall strength and ability. That pale girl with the grey hair that you hang around would normally be considered B-rank. But her level of control puts her in the A-rank category."

This was something entirely new to Midoriya. He had never heard of telekinetic quirks being categorized in such a way. From all the research he had done ever since receiving his, the only thing he was able to find was that quirks like his were ranked based on how much weight one was able to manipulate.

Tatsumaki let out another annoyed sigh before standing up from her throne and glaring down at Midoriya. The look forcing a sense of dread to wash over the boy's body. "Alright, I'm through talking to you. It's obvious that I'm going to have to give you a more _practical lesson_ to prove my point."

Without any warning, the ground around the two began shaking and Midoriya watched as a ridiculous amount of garbage levitated into the air. But this was only the beginning. Before his very eyes, the pile of trash began reforming, condensing and reshaping until fifteen massive spears were aimed directly at him.

"**Gungnir!"**

'_What the hell is this?'_ He gawked. Was this a super move of hers? He'd never seen Tatsumaki do this in any of the old footage that he could find on the women.

"If you don't want to get hurt, I suggest that you find a way to dodge this." Was the only warning that she decided to give him before sending all fifteen metal spears at him. Her tone was cold and almost indifferent.

Midoriya reacted by activating his power and flying directly upwards into the sky. But as soon as he did that, the spears changed direction and proceeded to chase him down. They were coming at him so fast that he almost got hit a couple of times in a matter of seconds.

'_His speed has improved, and he thinks well under pressure. But that's not going to be enough.'_ The '_psychokinesis'_ user thought. "You have an opponent who possesses the same skillset as you. But also has you outclassed in terms of experience and skill. What do you think you should do?"

Deciding not to respond, Midoriya got his bearings in order quickly enough to counter this assault. "**Palace of Inertia!"** All of the spears instantly stopped mid-air, giving the boy enough time to take control of them and aim then back at his opponent. It was clear to Midoriya that this wasn't the kind of situation where he could be gentle and bide his time. Instead, he chose to take the offensive before his opponent could have a chance to counter.

"Take this!" He shouted while redirecting all of the spears right back at the green haired woman. But something unsettling caught his eye. Instead of easily retaking control of the spears herself. All Tatsumaki did was smirk at him.

"**Psycho-Zone: Dance of the Mountain Wind!"**

In what could only be described as a masterclass of both grace and style, Tatsumaki effortlessly avoided every last one of the spears. All while keeping her arms folded across her chest. But something was weird about the way she moved. It wasn't just her moving her body out of the way. There was more to it than that.

"What the hell?"

"Here's a little bit of information, brat. "_Palace of Inertia"_ is only the first step in my ultimate technique, "_Psycho-Zone"_..." The woman explained. "With "_Palace of Inertia"_, you learn to stop movement within a certain radius of your body. But in time, you will be able to take this a step further. By taking it to the next level, you'll be able to control everything within a given area. Even the flow of wind."

Midorya was absolutely gobsmacked by what he just heard. There was a move beyond what he already knew? From what he just witnessed, it looked to be something that required an expert level of control over his quirk. Something that he couldn't possibly be capable of as he was now.

"You can even use it offensively." Tatsumaki continued. The woman then raised her left hand and the very air around him grew stiff. "**Psycho-Zone: Hellstorm - Towering Tornado!"**

Instantly, every single piece of garbage and sand within a two hundred meter radius lifted up off the ground and formed an absolutely massive twister around the boy's body. The speed of which was so fast that it was strong enough to disrupt Midoriya's ability to stay in the air.

'_This is "Hellstorm", but a whole different level!'_ He interenatilzed while trying to get himself in order, but to no avail. The next thing Midoriya felt was a powerful impact square in the center of his chest forcing him down to the ground. Burying him a good meter into the sand. When he looked up, all he could see was Tatsumaki standing over him with a satisfied smirk on her face.

"And _that_ is an example of what you should be capable of when you decide to stop fucking around."

"What?"

"Everything I just did should be well within your power once you master this quirk of ours. It will take some time, but I'm sure that you'll be able to do it. I doubt you'll ever really get a chance to do that since you want to do rescue work like Fubuki. But you're smart enough to figure out some new and creative ways to take advantage of what I just showed you. "

Wait a second, were those words of...encouragement? From the Terrible Tornado herself. The boy must've hit his head on that landing.

Tatsumaki decided that now was a good time to put an end to this charade and remove herself from the boy's sternum. Giving Midoriya a chance to catch his breath.

"What the hell was that for?" He shot her an annoyed scowl.

"I'm not one of those people who likes to hold your hand when training you, Fubuki can attest to that. I prefer the "trial by fire" approach."

"Wait...are you trying to _teach_ me?" He asked in a confused voice.

"Pop a squat, Izuku." She ordered him, using his actual given name for the first time ever. Seeing as he had no real choice in the matter, the boy simply did as he was told. With the woman quickly following suit.

"Look…" She began in a softer tone of voice than before. "This is pretty much going to be the only time that we'll be able to have an actual conversation like this before I disappear for good. I wanted the chance to show you what you're capable of with this quirk of ours."

"What do you mean?"

"After this, our personalities are going to merge together. I know it sounds weird as all hell, but bear with me."

Okay, now Midoriya was even more confused than what he was before. What did she mean that their personalities were going to merge together? Was something like that even possible? Something inside of him knew that she was being honest. But what did that entail? Was it possible that he was going to become more like Tatsumaki? That didn't sound like a good thing.

"Kid...you really need to learn how to condense your thoughts." The woman interjected. "I can't tell you how annoying it is having to listen to your internal ramblings damn near every single day."

"S-sorry." He apologized.

"It's fine." She told him. "But yeah, like I said before our minds are going to become one. Don't worry, I doubt that you'll become anything like me. You'll probably gain some of the knowledge about our quirk that I have, and maybe a bit more self-confidence. Which you desperately need more of. But besides that, you'll still be you."

"How do you know all of this?" Was the million yen question on the boy's mind, among many others.

"My connection to this body has been weakening ever since I woke up inside your head. I've only been able to retain my own sense of self for this long because I'm so strong willed. But that's besides the point. Before I go I just wanted to impart some of my wisdom onto you."

"Like what?" He tilted his head in confusion.

"Mainly that you need to stop being such a little weenie and step your game up. As much as I hate to admit it, you have quite a bit of potential. And assuming that you don't end up dead like I am, you have the chance to become a pretty solid hero."

This was a side of the woman that Midoriya didn't think was even possible. Everything he knew about Tatsumaki was that she was a strong willed woman who was difficult to talk to and had a massive Napoleon Complex. Or at least that's how Fubuki described her. If he was being honest, she reminded him a bit of Bakugo-

***Smack!***

"I can read your thoughts you little shit! Don't ever compare me to that blonde haired loser ever again. Otherwise I'll be sure to haunt you from beyond the grave! Unlike him, I'm not threatened by others. I don't need to be."

"I d-didn't mean to." The boy rubbed his now bruised cheek. It was strange how he could feel pain even within his own dreams.

"Anyways...that's pretty much all that I had to say. I'm not one for stupid cliche speaches about believing in yourself and all that nonsense. But I'm confident that you'll use this power of ours to keep people safe and do the best that you can."

'_Man...this woman is a total tsundere.'_

"I'll pretend that I didn't hear that." The green haired woman restrained herself from slapping him a second time.

Before Midoriya could say anything else, the world around him began fading into black. A cloud of darkness was quickly approaching the two of them and erasing everything in sight. The boy then glanced back over to Tatsumaki. Whose body was beginning to fade away as well. Slowly turning into a cloud of grey mist.

"Tatsumaki!"

"Like I said, this was the only chance that I had to to speak with you like this. Don't worry, I've already prepared myself for this."

"Wait, you can't go yet! I have questions." He reached out to her.

"Oh I know, but what fun would it be if I didn't leave you hanging? Besides, you have plenty of time to figure stuff out on your own. And you're in good enough hands with Fubuki. Just try not to get yourself hurt in the process."

As the seconds passed, more and more of Tatsumaki began disappearing. There was still a lot on the boy's mind that he wanted to know. But it looked like he wasn't going to get the chance to find out.

"Oh yeah, one more thing." The diminutive woman stated. "For the love of all things holy, stop acting like such a wuss around that girlfriend of yours. The girl's pretty cool in my book. And she doesn't deserve a guy who keeps getting flustered at the first sign of intimacy."

Alright, well those had to be the strangest set of final words someone has ever spoken in the history of mankind.

"Good luck out there, brat. I have faith in you." She gave him one last smile. '_Oh my god, I can't believe that I just said that. It's a good thing that I'm gonna disappear before anymore of his fluffiness can rub off on me.'_

That was the last thing that happened before the entire world faded to black.

* * *

_~Somewhere in Saitama Prefecture~_

"_...after evacuating all of the hostages, Blizzard and her intern "Skywalker" then proceeded to lift the train off of the tracks and levitated it to a high enough distance away from the railway and the surrounding structures. Saving the day and drastically avoiding any further damage."_ The voice of the news reporter stated.

Inside her bedroom, a little girl with red hair and green eyes was practically glued to the image to the television screen. Her face showing nothing but pure amazement at the feat of strength that the nice man with the freckles performed to save all those people. Even though his hair was a different color than before, it was impossible not to recognize the hero who rescued her and her dad from drowning that day near the bridge.

'_He's so cool!'_ The girl leapt up out of her bed and began floating around the room. Doing her best to imitate the actions that she had just seen. However, she could only keep herself airborne for a few seconds before falling face first back onto her bed.

"Jean, are you okay in there sweetie?!" A woman's voice called out to her from beyond the door in a very noticeable American accent.

"**Yes!"** She telepathically answered while rubbing her cheek.

"Good. Come on over and eat your breakfast. We don't want to be late for your doctor's appointment to learn more about your quirks."

"**Okay!"** She replied and then made her way towards the door. Taking a moment to look back at the television and allowing a wide smile to grace her tiny face. '_I'm gonna be a hero just like the Skywalker man one day!'_

* * *

When Midoriya woke up, everything hurt.

Upon opening his eyes his retinas were immediately assaulted by the harsh light of the room he was in, making his head feel like it was on the verge of exploding. Any attempt to get into a sitting position and get a better feel for his surroundings was promptly hindered by the aching of his body. And the most intense pain of all was located in his head.

"Ugh…" Midoriya groaned out loud enough for the other person in the room to notice that he had finally awakened.

"Easy there, sonny. Wouldn't want to have you pass out when you've just woke up, right?"

"Recovery Girl?"

"Yes." The elderly heroine admonished with a tap of her cane on the floor. "I got called in to help out a few hours ago."

"Am I in the hospital?"

"Indeed you are." She stated matter of factly. "You and a few others overexerted yourselves during that mission. I'll let it slide this one time since the situation called for it. But do your best _not_ to become a regular of mine. There's already a third year student that I have to treat on a monthly basis."

"Is everyone okay? What happened to the others? What about the-" Midoriya began his barrage of questions only to be cut off by the woman.

"Everyone is fine...somehow. You and Katsuragi had the worst of it. But the others are still resting up."

"And Ember?"

"She just got out of surgery. But she'll be okay."

A sense of relief washed over the boy's body upon hearing that. He remembered how severe the '_flame control'_ user's injuries were. But the fact that she was now in the hospital's care made him feel a whole lot better.

Now that he was finally awake, Recovery Girl took the time to give him a quick check up and perform another treatment on him. As expected, she forbade him from using his quirk for the next few days. But considering the amount of power he used he was glad that he wasn't in any worse condition. Once the healing heroine was done, she told him to sit tight and wait until the floor doctor gave him the all clear to receive visitors.

* * *

While Midoriya was busy getting looked over by Recovery Girl, Tokage and Kayama were making their way down the hallway en route to the waiting area. They had just finished paying a visit to see how Ozehana was doing. And they were more than relieved to hear that the woman was going to be okay after a successful surgery to patch up her wounds. Although her injuries were severe, the doctor told them that she should regain consciousness relatively soon. But despite the good news, Tokage still felt a pit in her stomach.

"Don't worry, Setsuna." Kayama patted her niece on the head lovingly. "Ember's a tough girl, she'll be back on her feet in no time."

"I know but…" The girl mumbled out. "I still feel a bit guilty about her getting injured like that."

"I know how you feel, but try not to let it get you down. Ember wouldn't want you moping around like that."

"I guess..."

The two continued walking in silence before the green haired girl decided to float a suggestion to her aunt that had been on her mind for the past few hours. Hoping to test the waters a bit. "Hey...Aunt Nemu."

"Yeah?"

"Do you think that Recovery Girl wouldn't mind teaching me some more first aid stuff sometime in the future?"

"Huh?"

"I was thinking, I'm gonna need to know a lot more about first aid if I'm going to be a good rescue hero in the future. And Recovery Girl is the best healer in the whole country. So she would be the best resource that I have to learn a thing or two to save more lives. Plus, I wanted to pick her brain about some stuff relating to my regeneration ability."

Kayama took a moment to ponder over the girl's words. The idea certainly made a lot of sense in her opinion. And Tokage definitely had a solid grasp on all the hero oriented first aid that she taught her when they were training her quirk. So she didn't really have a reason to argue with that idea.

"I'll ask her about it during our staff meeting next week. It wouldn't be the first time that Chiyo trained up a student on medical stuff. If I remember correctly, she helped one boy a few years ago get into a paramedic course after graduation."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah." The "R-Rated" heroine smiled down at her.

Tokage felt a slight bit of happiness well up in her chest upon hearing that. This whole experience was a rather big eye opener for her. And she knew that if she wanted to cut it as anything more than a decent fighter, she would need to expand her skillset. So if by any chance she could get Recovery Girl to help her out on that front, it would be a major advantage for her moving forward.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Anything for my future step-daughter."

After a few more words, the duo finally found their way over to the waiting area. Much to the '_lizard tail splitter'_ user's surprise, the only people currently occupying the space were Yanagi and Tokoyami. The two looked to be in the middle of a rather riveting conversation about something. And in an even more shocking turn of events, the grey haired girl had a slight smile on her face.

'_Oh, what's going on here?'_ Her entire state of mind instantly shifted into a more devious one. Already smelling metaphorical blood in the water.

Midnight decided to branch off to go check up on how Katsuragi was doing. Leaving the green haired girl to talk to her classmates. And with any luck, brighten up her mood a bit by having some fun at their expense.

"What's up guys?" She greeted them with a toothy smirk.

"Tokage-san?" Tokoyami replied.

"How's Ember doing?" Yanagi inquired.

"Surgery was a success. But she's still out cold. The doctors said that it will be a while before she wakes up. What about the others?"

"Juzo-kun just woke up a few minutes ago. He's still exhausted after over using his quirk to sink those bombs. But he should be good to go in no time. Recovery Girl is taking care of Izuku-kun right now. She said that we can visit him in a little while."

"I've also finally regained my ability to call upon '_dark shadow'_. But I was instructed to avoid using my quirk for the time being."

"That's a relief." Tokage said with a sigh. She had already seen the news footage of what Midoriya and Katsuragi did with the train. And Kayama had explained to her what happened in the Ginza shopping area a little while ago. So she was happy to hear that she would be able to see her boyfriend soon.

"So…" She then gave the two emo teens a sketchy look. "What were you two talking about just now."

"We were discussing a novel series that the two of us had both read recently." The '_dark shadow'_ user explained. "As it turns out, Yanagi-san and myself have come upon many similar works of literature."

"Wow, it sounds like the two of you have quite a bit in common~." Her eyes darted back and forth between them a couple of times.

"Apparently so."

It was impossible for Yanagi not to pick up on what Tokage was doing. After months of being around the girl, she had developed quite the knack for detecting her devious intentions. Hoping to put an end to this before something ridiculous happened, all the girl did was give her a cold glare from her exposed blue eye.

'_Oh yeah, I can definitely work with this.'_ Tokage mused, already coming up with a myriad of plans to get the two of her classmates together. With any luck she might be able to set up a couple of romantic "coincidences" for her to exploit.

"I would once again like to thank you for assisting me back at the tower, Tokage-san." Tokoyami then gave the girl a polite bow. "I am in your debt."

Tokage immediately waved the boy off. "Don't worry about it, dude."

"You are too kind."

"Hey, on a completely unrelated topic. You're not seeing anybody right now are you?"

"What?" The bird themed boy blinked.

"You see, there's this girl in our class that I thin-"

"Anyways…" Yanagi spoke up. "You seem to be doing well."

"Yeah, a little tired. But nothing that I ain't used to." Tokage answered.

"Good...let's try and keep it that way." Was all that the grey haired teen needed to get her friend to stop her antics. How she found the energy to do this kind of nonsense was a complete mystery to her.

* * *

Eventually, the gang made their return back U.A. for some much needed rest. Due to the chaos surrounding the events of the night before, the students had to get a ride from Kayama and the police to avoid any unnecessary hassles. They were a bit reluctant to leave so soon, especially since Ember still hadn't woken up. But Katsuragi assured them that she would keep them updated on her condition. But the bright side to all of this was that they didn't have to submit their reports on what happened until a few days from now.

"Man...I don't know about you guys, but I'm beat." Honenuki said in a cheery tone.

"Agreed." Yanagi added. "I could really use a shower right now."

"Seriously." Tokage joked.

When they finally made their way back to their dorm, the students let out a collective sigh as they approached the doorstep. It was the middle of the afternoon. And considering that the news of their mission was all over social media, their classmates more than likely already knew of what happened. Before Midoriya's hand could touch the handle the door flew open to reveal Kendou and Awase. The two of them wearing a set of worried expressions on their faces.

"They're back!" The '_weld'_ quirk user announced while looking over his shoulder.

"Are you guys, okay?"

"What the hell happened?"

"Do you know how worried we were about you?!"

"Wait, why the fuck is everyone's hair black?"

"Setsuna, your hair! My goodness, what hellish trial did you have to endure?" Shiozaki ran up to Tokage and grabbed her by the shoulders.

Now that they were inside the common area, the raid team could see that pretty much everyone in their entire class was present. The only people missing were Tsunotori, Tetsutetsu and Monoma.

"Alright everyone calm down!" Kendou shouted to the miniature inquisition. Effectively regaining control over the class. "I'm sure that all of us will find out what happened soon enough. But can we please not crowd them and start assaulting them with questions?"

After a few short apologizes from the group, Tokage decided to be the one to take point and give the 1-B students an explanation on what went down. Which took all of ten minutes. Thankfully Midoriya, Honenuki and Yanagi were able to fill in all of the gaps.

"Man, it sounds like you guys had one hell of a time." Kaiabara stated.

"Indeed." Shishida added.

"Yeah. The pros are handling the clean up, so they let us come back early to relax for the rest of the day."

"You were truly blessed to come out of that chaos unharmed. The lord was certainly looking over you." The vine haired girl clasped her hands together in her usual prayer position. A beam of sunlight shining down on her figure.

"Okay seriously, we're indoors. Where is that light coming from?" Fukidashi's speech bubble spelled out. Earning an equally confused shrug from Bondo.

"I wouldn't say totally unharmed." Tokage smiled while pointing to what was left of her hair.

"At least those burns have already healed up." Midoriya placed his hand on her shoulder. He was still amazed at how well her regeneration ability worked. In the course of a few hours, the girl's face was practically back to normal.

"Since we're on the subject...hey, Kamakiri!"

"What's up?" The tall boy with green skin replied.

"You know how to cut hair, right?"

"Yeah, I do Kaibara and Monoma's all the time." He told her. True to his word, he was pretty much the class barber for half of the guys in 1-B. Ironically his dad was a hair stylist. Which made a lot of sense considering his quirk.

"You think you could help me out with this? I'm not trying to walk around looking like I got into a fight with a pair of scissors."

"Eh, I'm sure I can make it work."

"Hey, where's everybody else?" Honenuki then asked. Wondering what the rest of the class was doing.

"Monoma is still out doing his work study with Crust." Tsuburaba was the first to explain.

"We haven't seen Tetsutetsu-kun or Pony-chan at all today. We honestly thought that they were with you." Kendou then said.

Tokage did find that a bit odd. It wasn't like the boy to just suddenly vanish without telling anybody, especially her. Her best guess was that he got called in for his work study with Fatgum. The silver haired teen did mention that they were working on a mission of their own. But that was the extent of her knowledge on the subject.

'_I guess I'll just have to ask him when he gets back.'_

"Alright...as much fun as this is, I'm heading back up to my room to take a shower. I need to get this dye out of my hair." Yanagi stoically said.

"No kidding." Honenuki laughed in agreement.

"I think you guys actually look pretty cool with black hair. Especially Midoriya-kun, shroom." Komori smiled.

"You think so?" The boy blushed.

"Oh yeah, Izuku. You look hot as hell. Part of me wishes that you would keep it that way." Tokage began rubbing her hands through his darkened locks. "I wouldn't mind seeing this when I wake up in the mornings."

"You can play with some more later tonight. As long as you make sure that I get a turn with _you_." Midoriya said with a slight smirk.

…

…

…

A dead silence washed over the entire common area after hearing that. One so potent that you could hear a pin drop on the other side of the room. In his confusion, the '_telekinesis'_ user looked to his classmates only to see them all wearing a series of shocked expressions. But what really got him was the obvious bit of redness on Tokage's cheeks.

"Wait a second…" Bondo began.

"Did Midoriya-kun…" Shoda was next.

"J-just make…" Komori added.

"A semi-lewd joke?" Tsuburaba finished the collective thought of the class.

"Dude...did you hit your head or something? Are you alright?"

"Oh no...the day has finally come." Shiozaki shook her head in shame.

"What?" A now confused Midoriya looked at her. Now that he thought about it, he had no clue what compelled him to say that. It was definitely out of character for him.

"Izuku's pure soul has officially been tainted by Setsuna's impious behavior. She's finally corrupted him. Don't worry Izuku, I think I still have some holy water in my room. We'll purge those sinful thoughts right out of you!"

"Did we suddenly switch stories or something?" Fukidashi wondered. Even Yanagi was taken aback by that comment.

"I think that's a good sign to show everyone that we need to let these guys go up to their rooms and rest." Kendou surprisingly joined in on the fun. "We'll have a lot to discuss later. For now let's just give them their space."

Everyone nodded in agreement and proceeded to go about their business. Allowing the raid team to go get themselves situated.

"I-I'll uh...see you in a bit." Tokage simply patted Midoriya on the shoulder before making her way over to Kamakiri to get started on fixing up her hair. Doing her best to hide the sudden redness on her face.

Before another thought could cross his mind, the boy instantly remembered that he had a ton of missed calls and emails from his mom and dad. He was planning on waiting until he got back at the school to update them on the situation that happened last night. And seeing as he now had some free time, he decided to get that handled before taking his shower.

* * *

After a rather lengthy and emotional phone conversation with his mother, Midoriya was finally able to hop in the shower and begin cleaning off all the sweat and dust from last night. He was fortunate that all he needed to get rid of the hair dye was a good scrubbing. Otherwise he would've had to run to the store to find something to return his green main back to normal.

As the hot water poured over his skin, the boy couldn't help but think back to the events of the last few hours. To his knowledge, there were still quite a few Derelicta members unaccounted for based on what he heard from Kayama on the way back over to U.A.. And their leader was still at large. On top of that, it looked like it was going to take weeks to clean up all the wreckage that came from the bombings.

It was a miracle to him how only a few dozen civilians ended up getting only relatively minor injuries in all the chaos. But that was far better than the alternative to what could've happened. Overall, he should count this a victory. However, this fact that Derelicta was still out there was a problem he didn't feel too comfortable with. The idea that they could still be recruiting new members and pop up again soon sent a chill down his spine.

The news hadn't broken on the nature of the organization as of yet. But part of him knew that it could negatively affect quirkless people across the country once the official story leaked. Which was something he desperately hoped wouldn't happen. Hopefully, there was a silver lining to all of this in the future.

And then there was his dream with Tatsumaki that he had back in the hospital. He had no real clue on how to approach the subject. Yet something told him that he and Katsuragi were due for a conversation concerning the things that he had been told while in his slumber. Midoriya didn't get a chance to talk to her about it back at the hospital thanks to everything that was still going on. But he made a mental note to contact his pseudo-sister as soon as he got a chance.

"Man...what a day…" The boy breathed a heavy sigh while still allowing the steaming hot water to run over his body.

"Hey Izuku, can you hand me your shampoo? I need to start scrubbing this dye out of my hair."

"No problem." The boy answered before grabbing the aforementioned bottle and handing to Tokag-

…

…

…

"Ahhhh!" Midoriya shrieked once the realization finally hit him. Jumping back so fast that he crashed into the back wall and nearly took the shower curtain down with him. The second he looked up, the green haired boy found himself looking directly into the eyes of a very wet and very naked Tokage.

"S-S-Setuna!"

"That's my name." She replied nonchalantly.

"What the h-hell are you doing?!"

"Taking a shower, obviously."

"How did you get in here?"

"I was coming to show you my new haircut. Your bedroom door was unlocked so I just let myself in. I heard you in the shower and thought that it would be a good idea to join you." The girl continued. Taking a moment to show the boy the new change.

The entire right side of her head was completely shaved down to the scalp and a few centimeters were now cut from the bottom. Overall, it was actually a really good look for her. And it fit her naturally curly hair very well. However, the new style was not powerful enough to solve all of the problems here.

"H-how l-l-long…"

"I've been in here for like two minutes. You were so deep in thought that I was starting to wonder if you ever notice me." She said while pouring some of his shampoo into her hand

Midoriya's face instantly erupted into a furious shade of red. A million different thoughts began flying through his head and none of them were exactly fit for child viewing. Suddenly, his mind became fuzzy. His mouth went dry and it took every last bit of willpower that he had to keep his eyes above neck level.

"Now...are you just gonna stand there, or are you gonna help me out? You wash my back and I'll wash yours." Tokage then asked him before turning around. Giving him a full view of her backside.

***Thud!***

That proved to be the straw that broke the metaphorical camel's back. The amount of blood that rushed to his head along with the added heat of the shower ended up being too much for the '_telekinesis'_ user. The only response that he gave the girl was fainting right there on the spot. Thankfully, Tokage was fast enough to catch him before he hit the ground.

'_Yeah, that's what you get for getting me all flustered downstairs in front of everyone.'_ The girl thought with a devious smirk on her face. '_Still, I was kinda hoping that we could have a bit more fun with this. Oh well…we can try again later.'_

With that, Tokage simply dragged the now overcooked piece of broccoli that she called a boyfriend out of the shower and dried him off before placing him on his bed and resuming her shower. Making sure to be extra careful around his more sensitive areas. The girl knew full well that she was going to have to find a way make up for this little prank of hers. But she already had a few ideas in mind on how she was going to do that.

'_He could've at least complimented me on my hair before passing out.'_

* * *

Following her little stunt in the shower, Tokage made her way back down to the common room to join the rest of the girls of her class.

"Wow Setsuna-chan, I'm really digging the new look, shroom!" Komori complimented her.

"Thanks! Kamakiri may be a bit of a grouch, but the guy does good work." She smiled before filling in the open seat next to Kodai. "So what are we watching?"

"Some old romance movie that Yaoyorozu-san was telling me about. Apparently it's about some guy with a beast quirk who needs to find true love in order to break some curse." Kendou explained while showing a picture of the film in question. On the cover was a beastly looking man in a blue coat standing next to a petite woman with brown hair in a yellow dress.

"Sounds super cheesy."

"Hmm." Kodai hummed.

Suddenly, Tsuburaba came flying out of the hallway and made a beeline right for the television.

"Hey, what the hell dude?! We already said that they girls were going to be using the TV for the next couple of hours."

"It can wait, look at this shit!" The '_solid air_' user waved them off while changing the channel over to the JNN. Before anyone had a chance to stop him, the image of a news helicopter flying above what looked to be a demolished city street came into view.

_"The scene here in downtown Fuchu is a complete madhouse! Minutes ago, our news crew caught wind of a hero raid on a suspected group of villains and drug traffickers. We don't know all of the details as of yet, but right now we can only see what's going on below us. At the moment, U.A. student Mirio Togata, also known as "Lemillion", is currently engaging in battle with one of the presumed villains as we speak."_ The news reporter stated.

"What the hell?" Kendou said in disbelief.

On screen was footage of the muscular blonde haired boy fighting what appeared to be some gigantic monster in mid-air. And not too far away from him was none other than the number nine heroine, Ryukyu. Along with Nejire Hadou right behind her.

"Wait, isn't Pony interning with Ryukyu?" Shiozaki looked around for confirmation.

"Yeah..." Yanagi stoically said. Unable to look away from the fight.

The group of students continued watching the battle unfold with wide eyes. It was only when an image of Fatgum briefly flashed across the screen did Tokage get an uneasy feeling in her gut. '_Metalhead's doing his work study with Fatgum and Amijiki. Don't tell me he's in the middle of this mess!'_

Whatever was going on, the green haired girl was definitely going to be grilling her long time friend about this as soon as he got back.

* * *

**A/N: And thus is the end of Tatsumaki in this story. Sorry if that felt a bit short with the amount of build up that I gave it, but I didn't want their chat to take up an entire chapter. Mainly because I highly doubt that Tatsumaki would take the time to do all the cliched stuff that I originally had planned. She isn't really the type of person for long drawn out goodbyes. I also just wanted to highlight the difference in their power and how much he still has left to grow.**

**1\. I was on the fence about introducing "Psycho-Zone" into this story. But Midoriya's going to need a new skill set moving forward. Especially with what I have planned for the joint training arc. Obviously he won't be mastering this anytime soon. But he might towards the end of the fic. **

**2\. The Cultural Festival is coming in the next few chapters. That's when I plan on Tokage and Ozehana having their long awaited chat. I juggled my options around for a bit. But I think that's the perfect time for them to have the discussion. And I'll also use that time to bring back a few characters that have been missing for a while. **

**I forgot that today was a holiday (In the US), so I had some free time to write this chapter up. Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review!**


	47. Back to Class

"And that's pretty much what happened." A still moderately bandaged Tetsutetsu concluded his story.

Shortly after their return to the dorms, Tetsutetsu and Tsunotori explained to their classmates all that went down during the raid on the yakuza base. They were in the common area along with Midoriya, Tokage, Shiozaki, Awase, Yanagi, Honenuki and Kendou. Much like Tokage and Midoriya's group, they were ordered to keep things under wraps due to the sensitive nature of the mission. But now that things were over and done with, they were able to spill the beans about their work studies.

"So _those_ were the guys who created the quirk bullets? A yakuza group?" Yanagi asked the silver haired teen.

"Now I get why your operation was such a big secret. Who knows what would've happened if those Yakuza guys managed to get away."

"At least that little girl is safe." Kendou added.

"No kidding!" The '_steel'_ quirk user agreed. "Pony was able to get her out of there before the entire bottom level caved in."

"But still, did you guys see Togata fucking own that Overhaul guy? That shit was insane!" Awase blurted out while punching the air. Earning a few agreeing nods from everyone in the group.

Inside Midoriya's head, the boy couldn't help but think back to the footage that he saw a bit earlier. He was asleep when everything aired on live television. But from the replays that were all over the news, he was certainly impressed by how strong Mirio Togata was. There were more than a few times where Hadou praised the boy for his strength. And it was widely accepted that he was the strongest kid in the entire school. It was safe to say that now the boy had no real reason to doubt any of those claims.

However, there was one thing that kept popping up in the back of Midoriya's mind every time he thought about the leader of the Big Three. _'He reminds me a lot of All Might.'_

It wasn't just Togata's powerful quirk that led the boy to this conclusion. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, a shockingly similar build and a smile that seemed to never fade away. The guy was practically a carbon copy of the former number one hero. Midoriya would be lying if he said that he wasn't the least bit curious about a possible relationship between the two. But he of all people knew better than to jump to conclusions like that.

"I'm just glad that you guys made it out of there alive." Kendou's voice brought Midoriya out of his ruminations. "There's just been way too much excitement this weekend."

"Indeed. However, the lord has once again bestowed his grace upon our classmates and brought them home safely. And for that, we should be thankful." Shiozaki added on.

"So how long do you have to keep those bandages on?" Tokage asked her long time friend with a worried expression. His left arm was still in a heavy cast and he had bruises all over his face and shoulders. According to Tetsutetsu, he got into a slugfest with some guy that had an augmentation quirk before Fatgum and Amijiki came to bail him out.

"Just for another day. After that, I should be good to go." He gave her a toothy smile.

"I'm surprised to see that you came out of that unscathed, Pony." Honenuki said to the horned teen.

"I was much lucky to be along Ryukyu-sama and Nejire-senpai when battle began. Therefore, I stayed away from many chances of injury."

"I'll admit, this does have me wondering though…" Awase began rubbing his chine in contemplation.

"About what?" Yanagi asked.

"Who would win in a fight, Midoriya or Togata?"

"Hmm, that _is_ a good question." Tokage joined in, wondering how a battle between someone with a top level telekinesis quirk versus someone with a top-shelf strength quirk would go.

"How about we save the speculation for later guys." Midoriya chuckled. But unknown to them, he was already starting to run the numbers about how that would play out in his own mind. And the green haired teen was certain that a battle with Togata was something that he'd want to avoid based on what he's seen.

"Izuku-kun's right." Kendou agreed.

"Still, I really want to hear about the raid that you guys did." Tetsutetsu looked to Tokage. "I only saw a bit of the news footage while I was in the hospital. What the hell happened there?"

"Well, it's a long story…." Tokage sighed before once again recanting the events of their own weekend adventure.

* * *

"Alright, settle down!" Kan said to his class after entering the room. "It's been a few days since we've had everyone in class on account of a few of you still needing to recover. So first and foremost, good job to the students who had their work studies this weekend. Things got pretty crazy out there, but I'm glad to see that you all made it out of the chaos in one piece."

"Thank you, sensei!"

"Yes." The blood themed hero nodded. "As you may have heard by now, the principal has temporarily suspended the work study program for all students. So you won't be taking part in them until further notice."

Although it was sad news to hear, the announcement made quite a bit of sense. With how wild the work studies ended up getting it was a pretty reasonable response. Not only did the first and third years students make national news, but a few second years also ran into quite a bit of trouble based on what they heard.

"Moving on, there's a couple of major announcements that I need to make."

"What is it, sir?" Kendou raised her hand.

"First, our school will be hosting a joint training session with Shiketsu High at the end of the semester." Kan told her, instantly peaking the interest of all the students. "This has been in the works for quite some time and Principal Nezu is very excited about it. We're still working out the fine details. But the condensed version is that participation in this particular class will be completely voluntary assuming that you meet the requirements."

"What might the requirements be?" Shiozaki asked for the class.

"Basically, you have to have earned your provisional license. This immediately rules out half of 1-A, but doesn't apply to any of you since you all have yours. Furthermore, it will be a team event where groups will consist of members from either this class, 1-A and whatever first year students that Shiketsu sends."

"What exactly is this all going to entail?" Monoma was next to speak.

"That information is being kept a secret for now." The man responded.

Almost immediately the students began discussing amongst themselves about what they just heard. A joint training class with Shiketsu? That was a pretty big deal. It was no secret that the two schools were considered rivals. Especially with the both of them having excellent track records when it came to producing some of the top heroes in the country.

"Alright! I don't know about you guys, but you can already put my name down for this!" Tetsutetsu announced with a giant smile on his face.

"You got that right." Tokage chuckled and then turned to her boyfriend. "What about you, Izuku? Are you gonna participate?"

"Mhmm." Midoriya nodded. "It sounds like it would be fun."

"Well, if Izuku-kun's doing it then I might as well throw _my_ hat into the ring as well." Honenuki gave them a thumbs up.

"I too will participate!" Monoma said in a haughty tone. "The superior might of class 1-B will surely come out on top."

"I'm so looking forward to this." Kamakiri licked his lips. Already planning on how he was going to slice up the competition.

"Alright, alright settle down. You'll have until the end of the week to submit your names. That gives you two days to come to a decision. But I do hope that you all will find the motivation to participate. We don't get many opportunities like this."

"What about the second thing, sir?" Kendou then asked, getting the class back on track.

"The second thing I wanted to talk about is the upcoming cultural festival." Kan stated. "So as you all know, it's an event that we host once every year. It gives not only our class, but all the others a chance to cut loose and have a bit of fun. And just like every other class, we'll be expected to host some kind of event for the people who attend."

"So what are we gonna be doing?"

"I've decided to leave that decision up to you all. I don't really care as long it's nothing inappropriate. Just make sure that it's something that will attract a good crowd. There will be an award ceremony at the end of the day for the best class. So that should serve as a good bit of incentive for you all to do your best."

"We'll show all those other classes who's boss!" Monoma cheered.

"Kendou, Tokage, I'll leave it up to you two to get that handled before the end of the week. Have the class submission on my desk by Friday."

"Yes sir!" The class rep and vice-rep answered.

"And that's pretty much it for now." The moment those words left Kan's mouth, the door flew open to reveal a very happy looking Midnight. The black haired woman had a smile plastered onto her face and she practically skipped all the way over to the front desk.

"Hello my oh so lovely students! I hope you all are having an absolutely wonderful day today!" The "R-Rated" heroine greeted them in a flowery voice. If you didn't know any better, one would say that the woman was glowing for some reason.

"_Geez, what's gotten into her?"_ Tetsutetsu leaned back in his chair and whispered to Tokage.

"_She had her birthday date with dad last night. So...probably him."_ The girl whispered back with a smirk. She didn't know any of the details about the date. But based on the way that her aunt was acting, it must've been a rousing success.

"Now, I _did_ have a pop quiz planned for you all today. But I'm in such a good mood that I've decided to push that back until next week. So for today's class, we're simply going to watch a movie!" The woman announced while still retaining her girlish smile.

"Aw fuck yeah!" Awase cheered.

'_Oh yeah, she definitely got laid last night.'_

* * *

Once classes were done for the day, the students of 1-B were all gathered in the common area to discuss their plan for the upcoming Cultural Festival. There were a few light discussions on the topic throughout the day. But now that they had some downtime, the students could finally figure out exactly what they were going to do.

"Alright guys." Kendou announced, gaining everyone's attention. "Let's start brainstorming ideas. The sooner we can come to a consensus, the sooner we can start getting everything ready."

The first person to raise their hand was Shoda. "How about a haunted house? Since we got the green light to be able to use our quirks, we can come up with some pretty good stuff for that."

"I agree with Shoda-kun." Kuroiro raised his hand.

"No can do." Tokage immediately shot him down. "Class 1-C is already doing that. Aunt Nemuri told me herself."

"Lame…" The '_black' _quirk user scoffed.

"What about a maid/butler cafe?" Tsuburaba suggested. "It will definitely bring in a big crowd. Especially since we have quite a few popular students in our class."

"Absolutely not!" Shiozaki countered. "Our class will not engage in such a depraved ritual that exploits our members' dignity."

Tsuburaba was about to argue with the vine haired girl, but quickly backed down due to the disapproving look that she was giving him.

"Well, my sources tell me that Class 1-A will be putting on a live concert performance." Monoma interjected. "Surely we need to do something that will blow them out of the water. I say that we put on a live performance of our own."

"And who exactly are your sources?" Kendou shot the blonde haired teen an annoyed look.

"We overheard Sero and Kaminari talking about it in the bathroom on our way back from lunch." Kaibara was the one to respond to the question.

"You know what...I think that Monoma's right." Said Tetsutetsu. "We should definitely do our own live performance."

"Like what?"

"How about a play?" Komori suggested. "We can do something original that will catch a lot of interest, shroom. We can do some kind of romance, space opera, jailbreak fantasy!"

"Tch...that sounds cheesy as all hell." Kamakiri sneered.

That comment was enough to start a rather intense discussion among the students. Nearly everyone began proposing their own ideas while simultaneously shooting down the suggestions of others. The biggest offenders being Monoma, Tetsutetsu and Tsuburaba. This went on for a good five minutes before Kendou ended up losing her patience.

"Everybody be quiet!" The '_big fist'_ user shouted while delivering a chop to the back of Monoma's neck to stop the boy from instigating anymore arguments. Silencing the entire common area.

"Hey, we need to take this seriously!" Tokage then spoke. "Because of all of the nonsense that our school has been through this year, we need to make sure that everyone, students and civilians alike, enjoy themselves and have a good time. The school board is on the principal's ass so we need to make sure that things go off without a hitch. And the _last_ thing that we need to do is start fighting over it."

"U-uh...I have suggestion." Tsunotori then raised her hand.

"What is it?" Honenuki asked.

"Why not combine all ideas?"

"What?"

"We can do live circus! I don't know the correct word for it. But we can use our quirks to put on real time performance that draws a big crowd. We can make massive spectacle that everyone will enjoy. And since there will be many children present, they'll want to come watch along with their parents and other students. They're very popular in America." The horned teen explained in broken Japanese.

Silence fell over the class as everyone considered what the girl just said. She certainly had a point. Doing some type of circus was definitely going to get a lot of attention. And if the class could secure a large enough area to work with, they could do some pretty crazy things. Hell they could even make an entire routine with costumes and everything.

"I like that idea." Midoriya then said. "My dad says that those things practically sell out all the time in the US."

"Indeed, it certainly sounds like it would be quite an amusing time for individuals of all ages." Shishida added on.

"I agree." said Kendou. "We can even have several groups perform their own routines before all coming together for one massive finale."

"Well, if that's the case then it's only natural that _I_ serve as the official ringmaster and master of ceremonies." Monoma somehow regained consciousness fast enough to put his name out there.

"As much I hate to admit, weasel-boy here _does_ know how to work a crowd. He'd do a good job in hyping up the audience and keeping everyone entertained in between routines." Tokage surprisingly agreed.

"Alright, all in favor of doing a live circus performance, raise your hand."

Shockingly, everyone in the class raised their hands to show their support for the idea. It was a decent compromise that gave everyone a chance to have their moment in the spotlight. And if they played their cards right, it would go over pretty well with all those who would attend the Cultural Festival.

"Then it's settled. I'll let Kan-sensei know tomorrow morning in homeroom. In the meantime, everyone can start pairing off and begin coming up with their own routines. We'll work out the kinks once we find out where we can set things up."

"Me and Yui-chan can work on making costumes too, shroom!" Komori grinned next to the emotionless teen.

With the chaos finally out of the way, the students of 1-B immediately began forming their own little groups and brainstorming ideas on what they could do. Although most of them typically weren't the competitive types when it came to stuff like this. The hopeful heroes of the future were definitely planning to put on quite the show for all to see.

* * *

Later that evening, Midoriya and Tokage decided to do their homework together in the boy's room. Unsurprisingly for two of the smartest kids in class, they ended up finishing a lot earlier than they expected. Which Tokage had no problem with since that meant they had a lot more time for...extracurricular activities.

When the boy walked out of his bathroom, he momentarily paused at the sight before him. His girlfriend was laying on top of his bed while casually flipping through the pages of the most recent edition of his: **Hero Analysis for the Future**. The same one that had information on all of his classmates.

"Y'know Izuku...these things are quite the piece of work." The girl said with a pensive look on her face. Staring intently at the current page. "Have you ever thought about getting a degree in quirkology?"

"I-I never really thought about it before." The green haired boy rubbed the back of his head.

"You should." Tokage continued. "I bet people would pay a pretty penny for stuff like this. You've practically broken down everyone's quirks and weaknesses to a science."

"They're really not all that much. It's mostly just random things I notice here and there."

In response to that statement, the girl began reading off a passage from her own page.

"User is able to split off pieces from any part of her body to varying degrees. Those cutoff pieces move according to her will with no set path of travel. Due to their usually small size and high speed of movement, they're hard targets to hit individually. Notably, if any of those pieces contain a functioning organ, said organ is capable of operating by itself away from the rest of her body. Upon further observation, the user routinely keeps body parts containing her heart away from direct combat. Presumably for safety reasons."

That was enough for the boy's blush to further intensify. Although he was fine with his girlfriend reading through the pages. He made it a point to avoid having any of his other classmates do it. Mainly because he didn't want everyone to think that he viewed them as some sort of science project because of their quirks.

"I'm surprised you noticed that little secret of mine. I don't tell people about it for a reason." The girl shot him a toothy smirk.

"It's just something that I noticed a while ago."

"I can see that." She said before continuing. "However...there's one thing about these notebooks that I find particularly interesting."

"What is that?" He tilted his head slightly.

"You're an amazing artist. Did you really hand draw all of these yourself? Some of them are really good."

"You think so?"

"Hell yeah!" She sat up and looked him in the eye. "You can _definitely_ get a gig as one of those street performers who draw caricatures of people at festivals"

All Midoriya could do was laugh at that statement. His mom and dad always told him that he had a knack for art when he was younger. But he never put much thought into it. In his opinion, most of his drawings were a far cry from perfect. They were primarily crude sketches that he would re-work when he had the time.

The green haired boy was quick to sit down next to the girl. All while she continued to flip through the pages.

"This stuff on Ghosty is pretty interesting too." Tokage then said, showing him the page with a picture of the '_poltergeist'_ user on it.

"Recent knowledge concerning "psycho-waves" shows fundamental differences in the application of our quirks. '_Poltergeist'_ functions in more of an area of effect capacity where the user's body is the focal point for manipulation of objects. Despite its limited range in comparison to '_telekinesis'_, this quirk works by having everything in range of the user (30 meters) be subject to her control. Whereas '_telekinesis'_ requires direct application of "psycho-waves" to move objects."

"Yeah, it's something that two of us found about during training a couple of weeks ago. I'm pretty sure it's why Reiko-san has such better control than I do when it comes to our quirks." Midoriya explained.

Tokage felt a slight twinge in her chest after hearing that. Midoriya and Yanagi were always paired up together when it came to quirk related training. Which made complete sense seeing as they had the same power and skillset. But part of the girl couldn't help but feel a bit jealous at how much time they spent together. She never once voiced these thoughts because she didn't want to come off a certain way to him.

Actually, it wasn't just that. Her boyfriend was on good terms with a lot of pretty girls. Some that had her beat when it came to physical...assets. Most notably, a certain blunette by the name of Nejire Hadou. Tokage wasn't exactly lacking when in the curves department. But that didn't stop her from feeling a slight bit of jealousy every now and then.

Hoping to get her mind off of those thoughts, the green haired girl moved closer to Midoriya and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Wanting to feel as close to him as possible.

"Y'know...if you ever want me to pose for you, I wouldn't mind~." Her tone shifted to a more sultry and devious one. "You can start your own..._private collection_ of fine art. What do you say, Izuku? Do you want to draw me like one of your hero girls?"

As expected, all Midoriya could do was blush at the implications of what the girl was saying. He may have gotten somewhat used to all of Tokage's teasing. But that couldn't stop his heart rate from spiking every time she did something like that. In response, all the boy did was try and turn the tables on the girl by turning his body around and leaning on top of her. Locking his eye directly onto her's.

"Whoa! It looks like someone's in the mood." Tokage grinned with a slight blush of her own.

"S-sorry, I can't help myself. I have to find some way to pay you back for all the teasing you do to me." He replied in a smooth tone. Lately, Midoriya had gotten quite bold when it came to physical intimacy such as this. Usually he'd turn into a flustered mess before the girl could finally sink her claws into him.

It wasn't an unwelcome change by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, Tokage was glad to see that he was finally becoming more comfortable doing stuff like this. But that didn't mean that the girl was going to back down anytime soon. She still had to make sure that Midoriya knew who the boss was around here.

"Well then...show me what you got, Freckles."

What followed was ten whole minutes of a rather steamy makeout session between the two greenettes. One that definitely got the girl's motor running so to speak. Tokage had to hold back from attempting to take the boy's shirt off. Mainly because she knew that she wouldn't be able to stop herself from trying to go any further once they passed that point. But Midoriya managed to make things more interesting by using his quirk to levitate the two off the bed and float around the room.

When the young couple finally decided that they needed to breathe, they were still hovering above the ground. Except now their positions were flipped. Midoriya was the one of the bottom while Tokage layed comfortably on top of him.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask you something." She said while tracing her finger along his cheek.

"What is it?" He looked up.

"We're having our family dinner next weekend at my house. My dad's been asking to meet you again and wanted to know if you'd like to come."

"Really?" Midoriya raised his eyebrows. He had only met Urie once so far, and that was back during the study session that he and the other's did prior to the semester exams. Naturally he felt a bit nervous about meeting his girlfriend's father now that they were officially dating. But it was something that was going to have to happen sooner or later. "I'd be happy to join you guys."

"Sweet!"

"Maybe we can invite my mom too? Y'know...kill two birds with one stone." The boy suddenly suggested.

Now it was Tokage's turn to adopt a nervous expression on her face. Needless to say, her two previous interactions with the Midoriya matriarch were less than stellar. And even though Midoriya reassured her that Inko harbored no negative feelings towards her. She couldn't exactly re-do the terrible first impression that the woman had of her.

Midoriya was able to pick up on this after seeing the worried look on her face. The boy deactivated his quirk and allowed the two of them to stand on their own two feet before placing his hand on her shoulder.

"We don't have to if you don't want to."

"No…" She shook her head and then smiled. "I think it's a good idea. It would be cool for all of us to have nice get together. I just need to make sure that my sister is on her best behavior."

Midoriya simply smiled at the girl before leaning down and planting another peck on her lips. One that she was more than happy to accept. Sure she had her doubts about seeing Inko again, but she was determined to make a good, solid impression on her boyfriend's mother.

It was only when the two parted their lips did Tokage suddenly notice something. She briefly looked Midoriya up and down one time before reaching a conclusion. "Izuku...did you get taller?"

"What?" He gave her a perplexed look.

"I just realized that I have to stretch up a bit more when we kiss like that." She then proceeded to place her hand and her forehead and move it towards him. "Did you hit a growth spurt or something?"

"I don't think I did."

"How tall are you?"

"166 centimeters." He said.

"Yeah...no, you're definitely a bit taller than that." She repeated her claim rather confidently.

Just as Midoriya was about to respond, the dial tone on his laptop cut him off. Both teenagers looked at the screen and the boy's eyes widened. Without thinking, he rushed over to the desk and hit the "answer" button.

"_Izuku, how are you?" _The freckled face of Hisashi Midoriya popped up on the screen.

"Dad?" The boy said in a surprised tone before looking at the date on his screen. "Is everything okay? We didn't plan on talking today, did we?"

"_No, no."_ The black haired man waved off. "_I finally saw the news of what happened this weekend and wanted to see if you were- Oh...am I interrupting something?"_ He shot a glance over to Tokage who was now standing right behind his son.

"Hello, Hisashi-san! Long time no talk." The girl gave him a polite smile and a bow.

The man's eyes darted back and forth between the two teens for a good three seconds before a short smirk graced his lips. "_Tokage-kun, it's good to see you again. Sorry for the unexpected call, Izuku. It wasn't my intention to interrupt you and your girlfriend's...private time."_

Instantly the boy's face flushed at the implications of what the elder Midoriya male was saying. He was about to fumble through what sure to be a humorous explanation as to why he was alone in his room with his girlfriend. But luckily, Tokage was fast enough to save his dignity.

"Don't worry, sir. We were just doing our homework. I guarantee you that we are behaving like two very responsible young adults. Absolutely nothing inappropriate is going on here!"

"_Good to hear."_ The black haired man nodded, albeit in a skeptical way. "_Actually, this is perfect! I didn't get a chance to talk to you that much the last time I was in Japan. If you have the time, I'd love to hear how things are going between the two of you!"_

"That sounds like a great idea!" Tokage smiled while patting Midoriya on the back.

'_Why do I have the feeling this is going to be extremely embarrassing?'_ The boy internally groaned. Resisting the urge to drag his hand across his face. Oh yeah, this was definitely going to be an interesting conversation.

* * *

**A/N: Three chapters in seven days? Is it easy to tell that I've had some time off this week? Nothing much here, just a quick recap of what happened with the Yakuza raid and a few announcements. What do you guys think of how the Cultural Festival and Joint Training Session are going to go? Personally, I can't wait to write them out once I get the time. Also, it's been a while since Midoriya's father made an appearance. So this seemed like a good way to bring him back.**

**1\. The family date is going to be the next chapter, and the Cultural Festival will be after that. It's definitely going to be an interesting affair. And a certain character is going to make a surprised appearance. Can anyone guess who it will be?**

**2\. As embarrassing as this is to admit, I lost my notes on who all will be taking part in the Joint Training Session. And for the life of me I can't remember who was supposed to be there. So what 1-A students do you all want to see? Obviously Bakugou and Todoroki won't be there since they both failed. So everyone else who passed is fair game. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a review/comment!**


	48. Family Dinner

"Oh man, this is not good. This is really not good!" Midoriya mumbled as he paced around his room. A worried expression written all over his face.

"Izuku, it's really not that big of a deal." Tokage tried to calm him down.

"Not that big of a deal?!" The green haired boy then turned to her while pointing to his neck. "I have hickeys all over me. I can't go see your dad looking like this!"

"I already told you, he won't even care."

"I don't know that for sure." He retorted.

"Trust me, he won't."

"But still…" He then turned to face his mirror once again to inspect the damage. True to form, the entire right side of Midoriya's neck and part of his chest was covered in small bruises and bite marks. A product of the shenanigans from the previous night. Now that he thought about it, his mother was going to see this too. The woman was already liable to cause a small flood at any given moment. Seeing her son covered in hickeys would surely throw her over the edge.

"Look, I'm sorry okay." Tokage then wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "I got a bit...carried away last night."

Probably the understatement of the year as far as Midoriya was concerned. But as much as he wanted to be mad at the girl for essentially marking her territory all over his body. He knew that he himself was equally to blame for not stopping her. "I can't even cover this up if I wear a collared shirt..."

It was obvious to the girl that it was a lot more than just the hickeys that were plaguing the boy's mind at the moment. It was the added stress of trying to make a good impression on her father that was getting to him. Although she was certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that he had nothing to worry about, she needed to find a way to remedy this as quickly as possible. Especially since they needed to catch their train in a little over an hour.

Luckily, a rather simple but ingenious idea popped into the girl's head.

"Look, all we need to do is slap some makeup on it and no one will even know." Tokage suggested.

"Do you really think that will work?"

"Yeah!" She beamed confidently.

"Do you have any that we can use?"

"Psht…" The green haired girl scoffed. "Please, my _natural beauty_ is all that I'll ever need."

"What about the other girls in our class?"

"The only person in our class that's into that kind of stuff is Koko." She said, referring to the '_mushroom'_ quirk user. "But she's at the mall with Kuroiro and Shoda right now. The rest of the girls don't use it."

"Damn." Midoriya clicked his teeth.

For about a minute, Tokage racked her brain to see who they could call on for help. Her first instinct was to ask one of the girl's from 1-A for some assistance. But the only person she knew that was into the whole makeup thing was Ashido. And she doubted that the girl with pink skin had anything even remotely useful for this situation. It was only after a few more seconds of thinking did she figure out who would be their best option.

"I know who to call." The girl stated while pulling out her phone and scrolling through her contacts list.

"Who?"

"You'll see." Was all that she said, her fingers already flying across the screen. "But...you might not like it too much."

-(o)-

About ten minutes later, the two greenettes were patiently waiting inside Midoriya's room for their savior to arrive. He had no clue who Tokage decided to reach out to for help. But Midoriya had faith that whoever the girl chose would be good enough to take care of the inconvenient situation that he found himself in.

Suddenly, a rather loud and energetic knock came from the boy's bedroom door. Looking to finally see who it was, Midoriya quickly opened it up and was met with a sea of sky blue hair wildly waving in the air.

"Hadou-senpai?" He blinked.

"Izu-kun!" The third year student said in a happy tone. "How's it going? I haven't seen you in days! I saw the news footage from that terrorist attack. That was pretty crazy, huh. Are you okay? Hey, hey, did you see Mirio-kun fight Overhaul?" The blunette began assaulting him with questions.

Before he could try and respond, another voice made itself known from behind Hadou. "Nejire, I don't think we really have the time for a Q&A."

"Haya-senpai, you're here too?"

"I was with Nejire when your girlfriend texted her." The redhead teen replied casually before stepping towards him. Without missing a beat, Haya took the liberty of placing her hand next to the boy's neck to see what they had to work with. After a couple of seconds, she shot a dry and disapproving glare towards Tokage. "Geez, you _really_ need to learn some restraint."

"What can I say." Tokage shrugged smugly. "Thanks for coming."

"No problem."

"Oh wow, you have hickeys all you. And some bite marks too. That's not good at all. Y'know, this is really going to make people question the innocent and cute reputation you have going around the school. The whole right side of your neck is all red too." Hadou said.

"I know…" Midoriya practically deflated.

"So, do you think you guys can give us a hand?"

All Haya did was hold up a rather large sized box with light blue fringe running along the outside of it. "Just be glad that me and Midoriya-kun have the same complexion."

"Thank you, I really appreciate it." The green haired boy gave the other two students a polite bow.

"Don't worry, we'll have you all fixed up in a few minutes."

"Oooh, we should do his entire face while we're at it! Don't you think, Yuyu? I think we can make Izu-kun look ten times cuter than what he does now. I betcha I can make those freckles of his really standout. Hey, hey, does anyone else find it weird how they form a perfect diamond on his cheeks?" Hadou continued rambling.

"I t-think that we should just stick to covering up my neck." The boy backed away slightly. Not looking to become a guinea pig for the blunette's cosmetic experiments.

"Hmph." Hadou pouted.

"Anyways…." Haya interjected. "Let's hurry up and get started."

* * *

The late afternoon train ride over to Saitama Prefecture was a bit of a nervous one for both Midoriya and Tokage. Naturally, the boy was still trying to compose himself in preparations for meeting his girlfriend's father. While on the other end of the equation, Tokage was feeling a bit anxious about seeing her boyfriend's mother again.

The girl took extra precautions to make sure that appeared and clean and proper as possible. She was sporting a nice looking royal blue dress that cutoff just above her knees. Along with a pair of black flats and belt wrapped around her waist. It was a bit more conservative than what she was used to. But in this situation, it wasn't a good idea to show a lot of skin.

While for Midoriya, the boy was wearing a simple black collared shirt with some blue jeans and his signature red shoes. The entire look was completed by an olive green sweater. Thankfully, he had enough foresight to get his haircut in effort to make sure that he looked as presentable as possible.

After leaving the train station, the young couple quickly found themselves standing in front of the door of the Tokage household. Urie and Kayama were already inside from what they knew. Nanao should be arriving any minute. And Inko was on the way over. The whole party should be present in less than thirty minutes.

Not looking to waste anymore time, Tokage pulled her key out from her pocket and opened the front door to the house. Midoriya let out one final breath before following his girlfriend's lead and entering the building.

"Hey, we're here!" The girl announced while kicking off her shoes.

"Well, it's nice of you to finally show up." The two teens turned to their left to see Kayama approaching them. The black haired woman was sporting a rather heavy red sweater and some black leggings. Along with her hair tied into a messy bun. Midoriya still found it a bit odd how conservatively the "R-Rated" heroine dressed in her free time. Especially since it was such a far cry from her hero costume.

"How long until the food is done?"

"About twenty minutes." Kayama answered. "Can you two help me set the table in the meantime?"

"Sure."

"Ah, is that Setsuna and her boyfriend?" Urie Tokage questioned as he stepped out of the kitchen.

Almost instantly, Midoriya felt his blood run cold. As quickly as possible the boy recomposed himself before turning towards the blue haired man. "H-hello Tokage-san, thank you for inviting me into your home." He said with a polite bow.

The man eyed the boy for a brief second before extending his hand out to him. "Well thank you showing up, Midoriya-kun. It's been a while since we've seen each other. I saw you on the news during that whole Derelicta fiasco. I must say, I was quite impressed."

"Thank you, sir."

"So...has my daughter been treating you well?" He then asked. "I know that Setsuna can be a handful at times."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" Tokage scowled at her father.

"Only that you have a tendency to cause trouble when you feel like it. A trait that you certainly didn't get from me..." Urie's eyes drifted over to a certain black haired woman.

"Yes, I sometimes wonder where the poor girl ever picked up on such a thing. It's truly a mystery." Kayama feigned her innocence with a hand over her cheek.

The group continued chatting for a few more minutes before Urie made his back into the kitchen to finish getting the food ready. While he did that, Tokage, Midoriya and Kayama took the liberty of getting the table ready. Everything was going smoothly so far. And Midoriya managed to not make a fool of himself yet. So it looked like the night was going to go off without a hitch.

Some time passed before the sound of the door opening up caught everyone's attention.

"Hey, we're here!" Nanao shouted, making her presence known.

"_We_?" Tokage wondered.

The girl quickly got her answer when another person walked in behind her older sister. Someone that she certainly wasn't expecting to see here of all places. Standing there was a young man with black hair styled into a bowl cut and pink eyes dressed in an orange sweater and black pants.

"Unohana-san?" Midoriya's eyes widened.

"Midoriya-kun?" The quirkless teen said in an equally surprised tone.

"Whoa, what's going here?" Tokage asked.

"I invited Unohana-kun over." Nanao explained nonchalantly while holding up a rather large bottle of wine. "It was kind of a last minute thing. But he wasn't doing anything today. Plus, I might need him to take back to my apartment in case I get a bit too drunk during dinner."

"Wow...you just turned twenty and already on your way to becoming an alcoholic?" Tokage joked.

"Well I think that I'm being rather responsible, runt." The short haired woman shot back.

"I didn't know that the two of you were such good friends." Midoriya then turned the attention over to the black haired boy.

"Yeah…" Unohana rubbed the back of his head. "Nanao-san and I hang out quite a bit when we're not in class. She helps me a lot when it comes to my English assignments."

"Well, we're glad to have you join us for family night." Kayama said to the boy.

Tokage took a moment to lean over to Midoriya and whisper into his ear. "_I bet you a thousand yen that nee-chan's trying to get in his pants."_

"_Y-you think so?"_ He whispered back.

"_Totally, she does have a thing for younger guys after all."_

-(o)-

After Unohana greeted the girl's father, everyone moved over to the dining room and sat themselves down at the table. While Kayama was helping Urie get everything ready. The teenagers were simply catching up on everything that had been going on in their lives. As expected, Unohana was doing great in school. And apparently he had the top grades in all of his math and science classes. Which wasn't a surprise considering the boy was a certified genius.

As for the elder Tokage sibling, the girl was also doing rather well in all of her classes. Neither of the two teens were familiar with rigours of being a psychology student. But based on what the woman was telling them, Nanao certainly had her hands full.

While in the middle of their conversation, a knock at the door caught their attention.

"I got it." Tokage stood up and immediately made her way over. Seeing as the only person missing was Midoriya's mother, the girl decided that it would be best for her to greet the woman at the door. The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user took a brief moment to straighten out her hair and flatten out the wrinkles in her dress in an effort to look as presentable as possible.

"Midoriya-san, hello!" The girl greeted the woman in a confident tone while showing her a polite smile.

"Tokage-chan, it's lovely to see you. Thank you for inviting me." Inko bowed. The green haired woman was holding a container of food. She had no idea what was inside of it. But judging by smell, Tokage could tell that it must've been good.

"The pleasure is all mine! Please, come inside. Dad and Aunt Nemuri are just about done with the food."

"Thank you."

With that finally out of the way, Tokage walked her boyfriend's mom over to the dining room to meet up with the others. Thankfully, they were able to avoid any awkwardness as the woman took the seat to the left of her son. But Tokage made it a point to send a death glare over to Nanao. One that practically screamed, "_Don't fucking embarass me in front of Izuku's mom!"_

-(o)-

"I must say Inko, this katsudon is amazing." Urie complimented the woman as he took another bite.

"For real, you should open a restaurant." Nanao followed up.

"Oh, you're too kind." Inko slightly blushed at the praise. "Katsudon is Izuku's favorite dish. And it's been awhile since I made it on account of him living in the dorms now."

"Would you mind giving me the recipe later? I would love to try my hand at making it."

"It would be my pleasure."

With the dinner already underway, everyone was getting along rather well. Urie and Inko were surprisingly friendly with each other right off the bat. Which was a good sign for the young couple. And despite everyone stuffing their faces, the conversation had been smooth with no issues at all.

"So Unohana-kun, how do you and Midoriya-kun know each other?" The blue haired man asked the quirkless teen.

"He volunteers over at the orphanage I lived in before moving to the school, sir. We've been friends for a little over a year now."

"Oh really?" Urie gave Midoriya an approving grin. "I had no idea that was something you did in your free time."

"Yes sir, I used to go over there at least once a week before starting school. But I haven't been able to go over there as much as I'd like these days." The boy replied.

"Well, that's to be expected given how rigorous the hero course is at U.A.. I know you have to commit a lot of your time to classes. Especially since Nemuri is one of your teachers."

"I'll have you know that I'm an excellent educator." Kayama huffed. "I haven't had a single person fail my class yet. And I'd dare say that I'm most of my students' favorite teacher."

"Yeah, most of the boys." Tokage quipped. That comment being enough to earn a few laughs from around the table. The topic of the conversation then shifted over to the young couple.

"How are you two holding up in class?"

"I'm doing pretty well myself, sir. But I still can't beat out Setsuna when it comes to school. She does have the highest grades in the class after all."

"I do my best." Tokage simply said. Trying not to sound too sure of herself in front of Inko.

"Still, I'm glad to see that you two are handling yourselves alright. I had quite a scare when Nemuri told me about that whole business with that terrorist group."

"Agreed." Inko chimed in. "I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the news footage the morning after. Thankfully, Fubuki-chan was there to make sure that you were alright."

"Yes, you two did a wonderful job at making sure those criminals were unsuccessful in their attempt. I don't even want to think about how chaotic it would have been if the heroes weren't there to put them down."

"The sad part is that a good number of them ended up getting away." Kayama then stated. "Most of them are in custody now. But this entire case is still far from over. The police weren't even able to find out the identity of their supplier. And they don't have any leads."

"Supplier?" Unohana questioned.

"Yeah, apparently some guy named Nitro is the one who was making all those bombs." Tokage answered him. "The guy's pretty much a ghost. They still don't know who he or she is. Or how he was able to do it. Even the forensics team down in Kyoto were stumped when they were trying to figure out how the explosives were made."

"How dreadful." Said Inko.

Midoriya was the next to speak. "From what Onee-ch- I-I mean Fubuki said, no one has ever seen his face. But the fact that he's still out there isn't good."

"I'm pretty sure that Unohana-kun can figure out what that stuff is made out of. Something like this is right up his alley. Especially with him being a genius when it comes to all that chemical engineering stuff." Nanao smiled.

All the quirkless teen could do was blush and wave his hands in front of his face. "I-I'd prefer to stay as far away from anything that blows up as possible. My current project is already stressful enough as it is."

"Nanao also tells me that you're quite the intelligent young man. Is it true that you've already received your own patent?" Urie then said to the boy.

"Really?" Midoriya gave the quirkless teen an astonished look. This was his first time hearing about this.

"Yes sir." Unohana nodded. "It was for my water purification formula. I've actually been in talks with a few companies from around the country on them hiring me because of it. After I get my degree of course."

"That's quite amazing."

"Yeah, Unohana-kun's a certified genius." Nanao said proudly, wrapping her arm around the boy's shoulder.

"It certainly seems like you have a very lucrative future ahead of you, Unohana-kun. What's a young man like you going to do with all that potential money?"

"I d-don't know about all that sir. But if I were to come across some cash in the future, I'd probably just continue doing what I am now. I don't really need a lot, and most of what I made from my last job went to helping out the orphanage."

"How very noble of you."

Midoriay couldn't help but smile at his friend. True to his word, Unohana spent the majority of what he made at his last job buying stuff for the other kids at the orphanage. Or helping out wherever he could. He made sure to keep a nice chunk of it for himself. But a large portion of his earnings went to buying school supplies and clothes for some of the younger kids when they needed it. Last year, he even worked a bunch of overtime hours to help buy small christmas gifts for everyone, including Kosai.

Things progressed pretty well from that point on. And it was looking like the night was going to breeze by without any issues. That is until Nanao decided to have a bit of fun at her little sister's expense.

"So...Midoriya-kun…." The elder Tokage sibling's voice lingered a bit. "It must be pretty nice living in the dorms with the runt here~."

"I'm sorry?" The boy looked up from his food.

"I mean, it must be great right? Two young adults living under the same roof with minimal adult supervision. Having _ample_ amounts of time to spend with one another."

The short haired woman's not-so-subtle innuendo was picked up on by everyone at the table. An awkward silence suddenly fell upon the room and Tokage's skin began to crawl. To the boy's left, Inko turned towards her son. Particularly interested in how he was going to respond to that.

"O-oh yeah, I guess you're right." A slight bit of redness fell upon Midoriya's freckled cheeks. "W-we have p-plenty of time to study and train when we're not in class."

"You don't really expect me to believe that all you do is study and train, do you?"

Unsurprisingly, Midoriya had a hard time figuring out how to respond to the inquiry from his girlfriend's older sister. Obviously he couldn't tell the entire truth seeing as both of their parents were right next to them. But any further hesitation on his part would be a bad sign.

"I think you need to slow down on the wine there...dear sister." Tokage sarcastically smiled.

"Oh come on, we're all adults here. Well...most of us anyway. I highly doubt that the two of you spend all your time playing shogi and watching anime."

The awkwardness in the room elevated slightly higher at her continued prodding. Looking around the table, Tokage was quickly able to take in everyone's expressions. Kayama was trying to suppress a grin behind her own glass of wine. Unohana suddenly became very interested in the decorations around the house. Urie's face was practically unreadable, but it was obvious that he was waiting to see how the two of them would respond. And even though she couldn't see her face, the girl could practically feel Inko's eyes on her.

Looking to clean this up as quickly as possible, Tokage was able to find the right words to counter her sister's devious attempt at teasing them. "Despite what you may be thinking, me and Izuku don't engage in any inappropriate acts at school."

"Yes...t-that is correct." The boy followed up.

"Right…."

"Okay Nanao, that's enough." Urie came to kid's rescue.

"Aww come on dad. You really think these tw- ow!" A sharp pain shot up the side of Nanao's torso before she could finish her statement. The green haired woman then looked down to see a floating hand with three fingers pinching the side of her abdomen. "Okay...I'll dial it back a bit."

"Thank you." The blue haired man simply nodded.

"Anyways, since we're on the subject of school. How's Tetsutetsu doing? I haven't talked to him in a while."

Desperately hoping to change topics as soon as possible, Tokage was quick to answer the question. "Metalhead's doing alright. He's crushing on this girl in our class named Kendou. But he's too chicken to ask her out."

"Wait, really?" Midoriya looked at her.

"Hmm, I thought that was the case. I did catch him staring at her during my class the other day. The boy looked absolutely lovestruck too. Ah, the power of young love~." Kayama mused.

Inko suddenly leaned over to her son and whispered into his ear. "_I don't want to sound rude since this is my first time meeting them. But is Tokage-chan's family always like this?"_

"_Pretty much."_ The boy said with a wobbly smile. "_But I think they're holding back since you and Unohana-san are here."_

"_I see."_ The Midoriya matriarch nodded before going back to her food.

Luckily for the young couple, that was last time they would have to deal with Nanao and her antics for the rest of the night.

-(o)-

Eventually, the party came to an end and everyone had to start making their way back home. Unohana and Nanao were first to leave since the elder Tokage sibling's drinks were finally starting to catch up to her. And since she wasn't on dorm duty this week, Kayama was going to be spending the night with Urie. Leaving the other three to say their final goodbyes.

"Thank you again for having me over, Tokage-chan. I had a wonderful time." Inko said to the young couple.

"Well, I'm glad that you enjoyed yourself." The girl smiled. "And the katsudon you made was excellent."

A brief silence passed over them before Inko decided to once again speak. There had been a notable tension coming off the woman for a good part of the night. But now that seemed to have vanished. However, it was obvious that the woman still had something on her mind.

"U-uhm…" The woman faltered for a moment. "I would like to apologize to you."

"Huh?" Both Midoriya and Tokage said in unison.

"I realize that I didn't give off a very good impression of myself the first couple of times that we met. I will admit that I was still having trouble coming to terms with the idea of my son having a girlfriend of all things. And because of that, I didn't treat you very fairly."

"I-it's alright, ma'am. I understand. I think any mother would feel a bit weird about the whole thing." The girl waved her arms in front of her.

"Yes, but it still wasn't fair to you. I may not be the most observant person in the world, but I could tell that you were trying your best to make a good impression on me. And for that, I'd like to apologize for having you worry over my approval."

"Well..I just wanted to make sure that you liked me." The girl said honestly while scratching her cheek.

"Well, I think that you're a wonderful young lady. And in my opinion, you are more than good enough for my son. I'm glad that Izuku has you in his life. Please take good care of my baby."

"Mom, c'mon...this is embarrassing." Midoriya flushed. From the way she was talking, it sounded like the woman was giving his girlfriend her blessing for marriage or something.

"You don't have to worry about that ma'am, I'll make sure he keeps his head on his shoulders." She patted him on the shoulder with a wide grin on her face.

"Please dear, call me Inko."

* * *

It didn't take long for Midoriya and Tokage to make their way back over to the school after saying their final goodbyes to Urie and Kayama. The two were currently heading towards the main road en route to U.A.. Walking side-by-side with their fingers interlocked with one another's.

Luckily, they still had over half an hour before curfew. So there was no need for them to try and rush back to their dorm. Instead, they decided to take their time and enjoy the night air.

"Man, that went a lot better than I thought it would." The girl said with a relieved sigh while snuggling up a bit closer to him.

"Mhmm." Midoriya nodded. "It got kind of scary there for a second with your sister."

"Remind me to spray a can of silly-string in her face the next time I see her."

"Noted." The boy laughed.

As they turned the corner to get them onto the next street, Tokage was quick to notice a familiar looking duo holding hands a bit further out in front of them. It took a second for her to figure out exactly who it was that she was looking at. But the peculiar looking appendages hanging down the sides of the shorter person's head pretty much confirmed her suspicions.

"Hey, Jiro, Kaminari!" She shouted at the two 1-A students.

Much to the two 1-B student's confusion, the aforementioned pair seemed to be startled by that and immediately tried to hide their faces from them. Unfortunately it didn't work seeing as the unique black streak in Kaminari's hair was clearly visible to them.

"What the hell's wrong with you two?" Tokage then asked as they closed the distance in between them.

"Midoriya...T-Tokage...fancy running into you two out here." The '_electrification'_ quirk user greeted the couple shakily.

"What are you guys doing out here?" Jiro asked in a slightly calmer tone than the boy.

"We're just coming back from having dinner with our families." Midoriya was the one to answer. "What about you guys?"

"Oh you know...just hanging out. On our way back to the dorms."

"Yeah...hanging out." The purple haired teen echoed. Sliding her hands into her pockets in an attempt to seem as aloof as possible.

Tokage's eyes darted between the two for a few seconds. And that was pretty much all it took for the green haired girl to piece together what exactly was going on here. Although she wasn't a hundred percent sure about it. Her romantic instincts were usually right when it came to this kind of stuff.

"So…" She flashed Jiro and Kaminari a devious smirk. "Did you two have fun on your date?"

"What?!" Both of the 1-A teens' faces reddened almost instantly.

"Oh come on...it's obvious what's going on here. A guy and girl, out together this late at night, on a weekend, holding hands nonetheless. On top of that, you two trying to hide your faces after I called your names pretty much gave you away." The girl explained.

"That's c-crazy." Kaminari laughed unconvincingly. "The two of us were just hanging out is all. Nothing weird about that, right? Just two friends, spending some time together after a nice dinner and trip to a karaoke studi-"

"Stop talking, you idiot!" Jiro slapped her hand over the blonde's mouth. The purple haired teen took a moment to calm herself down before looking at Tokage. "Look, we would _really_ appreciate it if you pretended that you never saw us."

"What for?" Midoriya questioned only a second before connecting the dots in his head. "Wait, are you guys trying to keep it a secret?"

"Yes." They both nodded in unison.

"Why?"

"Honestly...we just don't want our classmates knowing right now. We just started dating and it would be a pain if everyone found out. Especially Mina and Toru."

"I see." Tokage nodded. She didn't really see the point in all of this, but it wasn't her place to judge. However, she was definitely going to use this to her advantage for a _project_ that she was currently working on. '_Weird, I totally thought this girl was a lesbian.'_

"So can you guys do us a solid and not mention this to anyone else?" Jiro asked once again.

"Oh yeah, we can definitely do that. On one condition though."

"And what is that?" Kaminari gave her a skeptical look.

An ear-to-ear grin suddenly grew on Tokage's face, one that sent a chill down Midoriya's spine. He's seen that look plenty of times before. A look that told him that his girlfriend had some sort of scheme on her mind. "You two need to help me out with something."

"With what?"

"You guys know Yanagi, right?"

* * *

The following day was a rather special occasion in Japan. One that people from all across the country cleared their schedules for. At the moment, the entirety of class 1-B was gathered around the television in the common area. Patiently waiting for the national hero ranking ceremony to begin. Although the official rankings came out the day before, everyone was interested in seeing who would be fortunate enough to make it into the top ten.

"Ugh...how much longer until it starts? I'm fucking dying of boredom over here!" Awase groaned as she dropped himself onto the sofa in between Shishida and Kodai.

"It should only be a few more minutes." Kendou told him.

"I hear the rankings were pretty tight this time around." Tetsutetsu said.

"So, who do you think's going to take the top spot?" Shoda asked around.

"Endeavor, obviously." Monoma replied.

It had certainly been a topic of discussion around the school over the last few days. The '_Flame Hero'_ was all but guaranteed to take over as the new number one hero of the country. He had the numbers and popularity, that much was certain. Very few people could come up with an argument against him. And now that All Might was officially retired, he was the only logical choice.

"I bet Todoroki-san in 1-A is pretty pumped about that." Honenuki joked in his seat next to Tetsutetsu.

"No kidding." Awase agreed. "Having your dad as the top hero is definitely something to brag about."

"I wonder if Ryukyu-sama will be top ten contender again. Number nine spot was achievement last time for her." Tsunotori said.

"Hey shut up, it's starting!" Kamakiri growled at his classmates.

A silence fell over the class as everyone focused their attention onto the television screen.

_"Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for being here today as we officially announce the rankings for the country's top heroes."_ The announcer calmly spoke into the microphone. "_Now, I don't really see a point in wasting anymore time. So let us begin. First, coming in at number ten, the 'Dragoon Hero' Ryukyu!"_

The blonde haired woman dressed in a dark red qipao graciously made her way onto the stage while waving to the crowd. She had a slightly sheepish smile on her face that was obvious for all to see. But she managed to keep her composure well enough.

"Alright!" Tsunotori shouted happily.

"She's down a spot from last time." Fukidashi's speech bubble spelled out.

"Yeah, she should definitely be a bit higher." Bondo agreed. Before anyone else had a chance to speak, the announcer continued on.

"_Next up will surely be a bit of a surprise to most of you. Making her first ever appearance into the top ten is the 'Psychic Hero' Blizzard!"_

Quite a few gasps could be heard from not only the students, but the people in the crowd as well. Blizzard made it into the top ten? That was certainly a curveball. However, when the camera panned over the seating section where all of the heroes were located the green haired heroine was nowhere to be found. This caused quite a bit of confusion before the announcer on stage spoke up.

"_Unfortunately, Blizzard herself was not able to make it to the ceremony today. But her and her agency wanted to thank all of you for your support. And she promises that she will continue to do what she can to live up to your expectations."_

"_Well it looks like Blizzard is keeping up with the family tradition."_ One of the male commentators said in a joking fashion. "_After all, the former number four heroine, Tornado, never once showed up to the ceremony before her disappearance. I'm fairly certain that was also the same statement that their agency gave out in previous years."_

"So Izuku-kun, are you going to keep the family tradition going after we all graduate?" Honenuki gave the '_telekinesis'_ user a playful elbow to the arm while smiling(?).

"Eh, I really don't care about stuff like that. It's just one giant popularity contest after all." The green haired boy said with a slight chuckle. Years ago, Midoriya would've loved to one day stand in the position of number one hero. It was his dream for the longest time. But nowadays that wasn't much of a concern to him. All he wanted was to do what he could to save people. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Honestly, I thought you'd be a bit more surprised, Izuku-kun." Kendou looked to Midoriya.

"Fubuki told him last night that she made it into the top ten." Tokage then announced, much to the surprise of the others.

"It is still quite an impressive feat." Shishida adjusted his glasses. "From thirtieth place to ninth is a large leap to make in only a few months."

"The whole '_Hero Killer'_ situation and the bombings boosted her ratings a ton. Plus she _did_ partner up with Edgeshot for a while. I'm honestly surprised that she isn't higher." Tokage explained. The students took her words into consideration and found that her newfound popularity made a lot of sense.

"Why isn't she there?" Yanagi turned to Midoriya.

"She doesn't really care about rankings. She said that going there was just a waste of time for her." The boy told her what his older sister told him the night before.

"Make sense."

The rest of the ceremony went by as one would expect. As just like everyone had predicted, Endeavor was officially the new number one hero. There was quite a bit of chatter about how this would play out. Especially since the '_Flame Hero'_ didn't have the best reputation when it came to public relations. But only would tell.

Once the festivities were concluded, the students of 1-B decided to spend the rest of their Sunday practicing their routines for the upcoming Cultural Festival. There were still quite a few kinks that needed to be worked out before they were ready to perform in front of a crowd. But with the big event merely a week away, they had to make sure that everything would go off without a hitch.

* * *

**A/N: So apparently this ended up becoming somewhat of a shipping chapter for me. I intended for the dinner date to be a bit more comedic than what it turned out. But most of the conversations that I wrote out just didn't fit well into the scene. And yes, I am a Kaminari x Jiro shipper. And I was going to find a way to plug that into this fic one way or another before it was over. I'm pretty sure you guys can tell what that's leading up to. **

**1\. I wanted to use this to show a bit of the reason why Unohana did what he did. He's pretty much using the cash that he earned from working with Derelicta to help out around the orphanage. I alluded to this quite a few times. We'll be seeing him again a few more times in the story. **

**2\. So yeah, Fubuki is now the number nine heroine. I know that this goes out of order than it does in canon. But if I didn't plug that into the story here, I have no idea where I would've put it. It's going to be important for a scene that I have coming up in a few chapters. But you guys will just have to wait and see what that is. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a review/comment.**


	49. Cultural Festival: Part 1

***Thud!***

Was the sound of Midoriya's back hitting the floor for the fourth time in the last two minutes. The green haired boy doesn't know how he ended up lucky enough to be Kendou's sparring partner for their class' hand-to-hand combat training. But right now he was wondering how exactly he was going to make it through the rest of the afternoon without receiving any more potential bruises.

"You okay, Izuku-kun?" The orange haired class rep extended her hand out to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He replied while accepting the kind gesture. "You really are amazing, Itsuka-san. Remind me to never make you angry."

All Kendou could do was giggle at the compliment. "Well…martial arts are kind of my specialty. Besides Shoda-kun, Kaibara-kun and Kamakiri-kun I don't think there's anyone else in our class that focuses on it too much."

"Good point." The boy agreed.

Besides those four along with Tetsutetsu and Awase, most of the students in 1-B specialized in mid to long range fighting styles. Which made a lot of sense considering the nature of everyone's quirks. And the fact that their hero classes focused so much on control over their powers rather than other areas of fighting made the difference in skill that much more obvious.

"Y'know, you should really look into learning a good fighting style to compliment your quirk." Kendou then suggested. "I remember seeing how Blizzard fought during your exam last semester. So maybe she could give you some pointers?"

"That's a good idea." He nodded.

While it was true that Midoriya knew a little bit of basic martial arts. He by no means had any formal training on the subject. Actually, most of his knowledge came from watching a bunch of "how to" videos on the internet in his downtime. The boy was so focused on mastering the basics of his quirk that stuff like hand-to-hand combat was put on the back burner. Maybe he should start looking into learning how to actually fight a bit more?

"Alright everyone, that's it for today!" Kan suddenly announced after blowing his whistle. "You're good to head back to your rooms. Make sure you clean up the locker rooms after you're done and I'll see you all tomorrow."

"Damn Izuku, I guess you _do_ have a weakness after all." Awase said in a joking tone as he and Tokage approached the two.

"Says the guy who tapped out after ten seconds." The green haired girl smirked.

"Hey, that was only because you kept pulling on my fucking ear! It was a dirty trick and you know it!"

"Kan-sensei never said it was against the rules." Tokage shrugged at the boy. "It's not my fault that you can't learn to think outside of the box."

"Whatever…" The headband wearing teen scoffed.

"Anyways…you reserved the p.e. field for us to practice this afternoon, right?" Tokage then looked at her class rep.

"Yeah." The ginger teen nodded. "We have it for an hour. So we should be able to get through most of the routine by then. But we still won't have most of the props."

With the school's cultural festival only a week and half away, class 1-B was doing everything they could to ensure that their routine would be perfect for the big day. This included group rehearsals at least twice a week to make sure that everything flowed smoothly. Surprisingly, there weren't really any issues that came up aside from trying to stay within their allotted time frame. But even then, that wasn't even a big deal.

The majority of the class was split up into either pairs or groups of three. Tokage and Kamakiri being one duo. Kendou, Tetsutetsu and Kaibara being another. And a few others with compatible quirks partnering up to show off their creativity. As expected, Midoriya and Yanagi were also paired up together. And the "Dynamic Duo" of 1-B would serve as the finishing act to close out the fun.

The only exceptions were Kodai and Komori. Who were in charge of making the costumes. Fukidashi, who was tasked with writing the script. And Monoma, the official "Ringmaster" of the entire event.

Overall, the students were really looking forward to this. Sure none of them were particularly interested in ever pursuing a career in the entertainment industry. But getting to cut loose and have a bit of fun while giving everyone a nice show was definitely a welcomed change of pace for the future heroes.

* * *

Before they knew it, the day of the cultural festival had finally arrived….

The entire campus was hustling and bustling with all manner of excitement and attractions. There were food stands, games, art displays and everything that one would expect to find at your typical high school festival event. Of course because this was the famous U.A. high school, there were quite a few more people present than normal. But that detail only added to the aura of excitement that could be felt all over the entire school.

"Man…there's so much to do around here!" Tetsutetsu awed at all of the booths.

"No kidding. I don't even know where we should start." Midoriya agreed.

At the moment, the two boys along with Yanagi, Tokage and Shiozaki were wandering around the school grounds. Class 1-B's performance wasn't scheduled until after noon, so the hero course students still had a few hours to kill before the show time. They all agreed to meet up an hour beforehand to get dressed and make sure that everything was in place. So until then, the students were free to enjoy the festivities with everyone else.

"We should definitely hit up some of the concession stands first." Tokage suggested. "I heard some business course second years were doing a ramen stand."

"I'd like to check out the haunted house those general studies students set up." Yanagi was the next to speak.

"Yeah, I thought you'd be interested in that kind of thing, Ghosty." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user laughed.

All the grey haired teen did was give the girl a dry and unimpressed glare before the group decided to make their way over to the makeshift food court in front of the cafeteria.

-(o)-

By the time the group of five made it to their destination, the place was filled with students, parents and other civilians looking to partake in some of the festival food. And much to their dismay, nearly every single stand had a line in front of it. They thought that they were going to be able to grab a quick bite to eat and relax for a little while. But it was plainly obvious to the hero course students that wasn't a viable option for them now.

"Damn, this sucks!" Tokage snapped her fingers in annoyance. There was a yakitori stand not too far from where they were standing. But like every other place, it looked like it would be a while before she'd be able to get a few sticks for herself.

"It's certainly very lively around here." Shiozaki continued looking around.

"Yes, that does seem to be the case." A voice suddenly said from behind.

The group of students immediately turned around and found themselves face-to-face with three people they certainly weren't expecting to run into today. Standing there was Katsuragi, Lily and Ozehana. All dressed in normal street clothes as opposed to their usual work attire. This actually may have been the first time most of them ever saw the green haired heroine in anything other than a dress and fur coat. However, that was far from the most surprising thing here.

What really got their attention was the Ozehana. And the fact that the '_flame control'_ user was in a wheelchair being pushed around by Lily. The muscular woman was dressed in a set of orange sweats along with a black baseball cap. But the most notable thing about her appearance was that her once long and beautiful black hair was completely shaved off.

"Ember?!" Tokage said with wide eyes.

"What's up guys, it's been a while hasn't it?" The woman said with a smile. "How have you guys been?"

"Forget us, what about you? Are you okay?!"

"Have you been in a wheelchair ever since the raid?" An equally worried Midoriya then followed up.

"Is this permanent?" Yanagi then said. Albeit in a calmer tone of voice.

"Calm down." Ozehana waved them off. "Don't worry, I can still walk. I just need to limit how much I move throughout the day so I don't aggravate any of my injuries. To be honest, I'd much rather be moving on my own. But these two keep making a big fuss over it." She then pointed to her two agency partners.

"That's because you insist on coming into work when you're supposed to be recovering." Lily dryly retorted.

"Eh, I have nothing better to do. And sitting around my apartment all day watching anime is boring."

"Oh, thank God." Tokage breathed out a sigh of relief. Truth be told, the events of what transpired back at the raid were still weighing heavily on her conscience. Especially since she still blamed herself for Ozehana being injured in the first place on account of her own negligence. But the fact that the woman appeared to be in good enough condition made her feel a lot better. "Wait, what are you guys doing here?"

"Izuku mentioned that you guys were going to be putting on a performance today. So we all decided to take the day off." Katsuragi explained.

"That _and_ Fubuki-san needed an excuse to get away from the agency. Especially since things have been pretty hectic over the last couple of weeks." Lily said immediately after.

"Yes…that too…"

"Is something wrong?" Midoriya then looked at his pseudo-sister.

"Not really. But ever since the hero rankings came out, the boss has been getting slammed with interview and sponsorship requests. We get at least like fifty of them a day it seems." Said Ozehana.

"Oh yes, congratulations on making it into the top ten, Blizzard-san. From what Izuku, Reiko and Setsuna have told us you truly deserved it. Thank you for doing away with that monster known as the '_Hero Killer'_ who so savagely took the life of our classmate. I pray that the lord continues to shine his light upon you." Shiozaki bowed. A ray of sunshine falling down upon her.

'_Where the hell is that light coming from?'_ Lily and Ozehana wondered while looking up into the sky. Which only confused them even more seeing as there were barely any clouds nearby.

"Yeah, good job!" Tetsutetsu gave her a thumbs up.

"Thank you, I truly appreciate it." Katsuragi smiled.

"So what were you guys up to?" Midoriya then asked.

"Look for you actually." The woman replied. "We got here a bit earlier than we expected, so we were hoping that you guys could show us around. I'm interested in seeing how much the school has changed ever since I graduated. Maybe we can even get a bite to eat as a group?"

"Sounds like a plan!" Tetsutetsu cheered.

"The only problem is that all of the stands are packed." Yanagi then stated.

"Hmm." Lily hummed while looking over the flyer that she grabbed when they first showed up at the school. "It says here that one of the third year classes is hosting a maid/butler café. We should be able to grab some snacks from there."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Tokage shrugged and then looked to the rest of her classmates. "What about you guys?"

Everyone nodded in agreement at the woman's proposal. Well, nearly everyone. Shiozaki had a particularly sour look on her face. Obviously because she wasn't the biggest fan of these kinds of things. But instead of protesting, the vine haired girl agreed to accompany them to the café. And with any luck, they would be out of there pretty quickly.

"Then it's settled! Let's get a move on." Ozehana said happily.

"I'll push your chair for you." Tokage suddenly offered, much to the surprise of the others.

"It's cool, I can do it myself."

"No please, I insist."

For a brief moment, Ozehana stared at the green haired girl before relenting and allowing her to take control of the chair. It wasn't a big deal, especially since Lily definitely needed a break from pushing her around for most of the morning. But it was clear to the '_flame control'_ user what the girl was trying to do. Ozehana wanted to let Tokage know that she didn't blame her for what happened. However, the woman simply chose to hold her tongue for the time being.

* * *

The journey over to class 3-I was a bit longer than what the now group of eight would've liked. And that was mainly because people kept stopping them in the halls to get a picture or autograph from Japan's newest number nine hero. Although Katsuragi was grateful for being recognized as one of the top heroes in the country, she could do without all the media fanfare. Ironically, the woman now understood why her sister avoided the camera so much when she was still alive.

Once they made it to their destination, it only took a couple of minutes for the group to be seated at one of the larger tables towards the back of the classroom.

"So you're pretty much stuck doing office work for the time being?" Yanagi inquired.

"Yeah…" Ozehana sighed. "I'll be working with Lily until I get cleared to start doing hero work again. Even then, I might only be able to help out at the fire station before I can get back to doing regular patrols."

"And how long is your recovery going to take?" Midoriya followed up.

"Three months for now. It's honestly a total pain, especially since I'm in charge of making everyone's schedules."

"Well, it could be a lot worse." Tetsutetsu said.

"You got that right!" The black haired woman laughed.

Before anyone else could comment, their waiter made her presence known. However, it wasn't the stereotypical maid that they were halfway expecting. What Midoriya and the others got was Yuyu Haya sporting a dapper looking tuxedo with a red tie. Yet the most notable change to her appearance was that her hair was now light brown instead of its usual reddish-pink.

"How are you guys doing today?"

"Haya-senpai?" Midoriya looked at the now brunette with an astonished expression.

"Yup...that's me."

"I didn't know your class was the one running this show." Said Tokage

"Believe me, I tried to argue against it. But we decided on it by a vote." The former redhead teen explained sarcastically. "Thankfully I'm only doing this for a couple of hours. I have to help Nejire get ready for the beauty pageant right after this."

"Oh yeah, she did say something about competing in that."

"Yeah." Haya smiled. "You guys can take a few minutes to decide on what you want. I'll be right back."

The group began looking over their menus as they tried to figure out what they wanted to order. Even though they weren't expecting anything particularly filling, they were surprised to see quite the good looking selection. The only problem was that everything was either some sort of pastry or dessert. Which wasn't exactly what most people wanted this early in the day. However, the pictures alone were enough to make them reconsider.

"Man, all this stuff actually looks pretty good. What are you gonna get, Izuku?" Tokage asked her boyfriend.

"Y'know...I've had a serious craving for candy apples for a while now. I'm honestly thinking about getting a few of those." The boy said.

Katsuragi immediately shot a sharp glance towards the boy after hearing that. Candy apples were her sister's favorite food. Despite her small size, Tatsumaki was liable to eat ten of them in a single sitting. When they were younger, the now deceased heroine would drag her out to festivals all over town just to have some. The fact that Midoriya even said that let her know that he was truly starting to become more and more like her.

'_I wonder if he and onee-chan have talked yet. I should ask him about it before I leave.'_ She thought to herself.

"Geez dude, you better be careful. All that sugar might make you even sweeter than you already are~." Tokage playfully pinched the boy's cheek.

"You think so?" Midoriya chuckled.

"Can you two tone down on the flirting? At least when the rest of us are here…." Tetsutetsu deadpanned.

"Indeed." Shiozaki nodded. "Such public displays of affection are wicked and impolite."

"Aww, there's no need to be jealous guys." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user smiled back at them.

Hoping to make things slightly less uncomfortable for the other three students at the table, Katsuragi decided to try and change topics. "I still can't believe that U.A. has turned into a boarding school. I'm actually kind of jealous. I wish it was like this when I was a student."

"It certainly would've made things more convenient." Lily agreed. The '_bone spur'_ user herself was also a graduate of U.A., except she was a former business course student.

"We had the same setup at Seiai Academy back when I was still a student. But that's an all girls school, so it made things a lot easier." The black haired woman chimed in.

"Oh god, I would hate going to an all girl's school." Tokage scoffed. "That sounds like a total nightmare."

"Why do you say that?" Midoriya asked with genuine curiosity.

"All that estrogen concentrated into one place? Sounds like a recipe for disaster." The girl joked. '_Or a bunch of lesbian orgies depending on who you ask.'_

'_She does have a point.'_ Yanagi silently thought. '_Thank god I got into U.A.. Otherwise I might've ended up going there instead.'_

"That would also mean that she wouldn't have any chance to flirt with guys in her free time." The '_steel'_ quirk user chuckled.

"That's also a good point. If I was at an all girls school, I wouldn't be able to spend time with my darling Izuku here~. Oh man, I can't even think about how bored I'd be if that were to happen."

Katsuragi then leaned over to Shiozaki and whispered into her ear. "_You guys do have a curfew here, right?"_

"_Yes."_ The vine haired girl nodded. "_Nine o'clock on weekdays, ten on the weekends. However, I do suspect that those two spend the night in each other's rooms from time to time."_

"_Yeah...that sounds about right."_

"So anyways…" Tokage suddenly changed topics. "Besides the media hassle, how's the top hero life been treating you? I bet you got a ton of guys trying to ask you out now, huh?"

"I'd be lying if I said that I haven't gotten a few offers recently." Katsuragi laughed.

"Really?" Midoriya raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, but I'm not looking for anything right now. Relationships are too much trouble when you have an entire agency to run."

"Oh please...there's gotta be someone out there you have your eye on? C'mon, give us the scoop! Who's got the heart of Japan's new number nine hero?"

"Who indeed?" Lily said with a slight grin on her face.

For some odd reason, an image suddenly popped into Midoriya's head. One of a young man with a shaved head and plain face standing next to Fubuki and another boy with blonde hair and black eyes. He had no clue who those people were. Or even why they suddenly appeared in his mind. But the boy had the feeling that he knew them from somewhere.

"_That bald idiot..."_ Midoriya whispered underneath his breath.

"What?" Lily glanced up at him.

"H-huh?!" Katsuragi's face immediately reddened enough to rival some of Midoriya's best moments.

"What?"

"Did you say something, Izuku-kun?" Yanagi asked him.

"O-oh no, nothing at all." The boy waved his hands in front of his face. That was weird, those words flew out of his mouth before he even realized what he said.

"Oh w-wow, look at that. They have cinnamon rolls here!" The green haired heroine immediately blurted out before anyone else to get a word in.

Eventually, Haya returned to their table to finally get their orders. Pretty much everyone stuck with some form of pastry that would hold them over until they got some real food in their guts. Well everyone except for Midoriya. The boy ended up getting five candy apples and began scarfing them down like there was no tomorrow. If he was being honest, he was starting to consider whether or not he enjoyed these more than his mother's katsudon.

Once everyone was done with their mid-morning snack, Ozehana decided that now was a good time to do something she had been holding off for too long now. "Hey Tokage, can I talk to you for a minute?" The woman asked.

"Uh, sure." The girl gave her a confused look.

"Awesome." The woman smiled. "We'll be right back, you guys."

"Take your time." Katsuragi waved her off.

With that, Tokage and Ozehana quickly exited the room. Leaving the other four students curious about what the wheelchair bound heroine suddenly wanted to talk about.

"What's that about?" Tetsutetsu asked what everyone else seemed to be thinking.

"No clue." Was the general response from around the table.

* * *

It didn't take long for the two to find a suitable location for their chat. Luckily, one of the equipment rooms near the stairwell was open. Meaning that nobody was going to bother them for the time being. And Tokage had a feeling that they wouldn't want anybody eavesdropping on them right now.

"So...what did you want to talk about?" The green haired girl asked after closing the door behind them.

For a good ten seconds, Ozehana nervously shifted in her seat as she tried to find the right words to say. Although she had mentally prepared herself for this conversation ever since she found out that they were going to be dropping by the school today. The woman found it increasingly difficult to muster up the courage to speak. "Well...there's a lot that I want to say actually. But first and foremost, I want to make sure that you're alright."

"What do you mean?"

"I got a chance to talk to Midnight the other day. And I know that you've been blaming yourself for what happened to me during the raid."

"Oh…" Was all that Tokage managed to let out. Her face instantly shifting to one of uncharacteristic nervousness.

"I wanted to let you know that it's alright. I don't hold you responsible for anything that happened." The black haired woman quickly reassured her. "Stuff like that happens all the time when you're on the job. And there was no way could've noticed the bomb."

"But still." Tokage retorted. "If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have had to try and save everyone."

"One of us was going to have to walk through that doorway anyway. So either way, it was going to happen."

"I guess you're right. But that still doesn't make me feel any better about it." She said honestly.

"Just use it as a learning experience. Besides, it's not like my hero career is over or anything. I'll be back on my feet in no time. To be honest, I've been working non-stop ever since joining the boss' agency. So it's about time I cashed in on all these leave days I've piled up."

"Yeah…" Tokage let out a semi-fake laugh. It was a major relief to the girl to hear that. Truth be told, she still had a fair amount of guilt about the entire thing. And she doubted that it would go away anytime soon. Even after hearing those words from Ozehana. But for now, she was content with putting those feelings to the side and focusing on never messing up like that again. "So what else did you want to talk about?"

"Oh yeah...that part's a bit more complicated."

"What do you mean?"

"You see...wow, this is a lot harder than what I thought it was going to be." The woman squirmed before letting out a rather deep sigh. Almost as if she mentally preparing herself for something big. "Before I say anything, I just wanted to let you know that I find this whole situation to be kind of ironic."

"How?"

"Right before I passed out, I mentioned something to you. Do you remember what it was?"

"It was something about my mom, right?" The girl answered. "Did you know her or something?"

"I guess you could say that…."

Okay, now Tokage was confused. She still didn't fully understand what the woman meant the night of the raid. There was almost now way that Ozehana could've known her mother. Especially since the woman was around the same age as Nanao. This would mean that she was roughly four years old at the time of her death. When her mother had just turned twenty-one. Maybe their parents knew each other or something?

"There's really no easy way to admit this. But to put it plainly, I'm the reason that your mom died."

…

…

...

"What?"

"Back when I was a kid, I was saved by a firefighter when my parent's house was burning down. It was only me and my older brother there at the time. My quirk hadn't even manifested yet. And the only reason I made it out of there alive is because she came back and pulled me out of there."

The weight of Ozehana's words hit Tokage like a freight train. And the dots were beginning to connect in her mind. She remembered her father telling her that her mom ran back into a burning building to save a little girl that got trapped on one of the upper floors. Only barely making it out before collapsing on the ground.

"I still remember that day clearly. Including that woman and her face. She used what was left in her oxygen tank to make sure that I wouldn't pass out. But it was at the cost of her own ability to breath. To be honest, I recognized you the first day that we met. It was hard not to since you look almost exactly like her."

"You can't be serious." Tokage simply said. Still reeling from the new revelation.

"I am." The woman nodded with a frown. "The sad part is that I ended up getting my quirk a week after that. Kind of ironic, huh? If it was only a few days sooner, I might've been able to get myself out of there. And your mom wouldn't have had to risk her life to save mine."

"I...don't really know what to say."

"I'm so sorry." Ozehana then lowered her head, much to Tokage's surprise. "If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have had to go through life without having your mother around. I'm pretty sure that me getting injured was just the universe coming to collect on my karma."

"Hey, hey, there's no need for all of that." Tokage awkwardly waved her hands in front of her face. "I mean, sure this is a lot to take in. Especially out of the blue. But it's not like I blame you or anything."

"But-"

"Really, my mom died a few months after I was born. So it's not like I really knew her or anything like that. Honestly, I always thought it was kind of awesome how she did everything that could save someone's life."

Ozehana was speechless as she tried to process those words. Was Tokage serious? Did she really not harbor any type of resentment towards her? She was fully prepared for the girl to lash out at her or something. But she wasn't expecting her to be so chill about it. However, she was thankful that she could finally get this burden off of her chest.

The weight of this moment was so heavy that a few tears escaped the woman's eyes. "You don't know how happy it makes me to hear that."

"Come on now, there's really no reason to cry. Tell you what, let's just agree to call it even. Besides, I'm not really good with tears."

"Sure." Ozehana wiped her eyes. The next thing she felt was Tokage wrap her arms around her. The girl made sure not to apply too much pressure to avoid aggravating the injuries on her back.

"It's pretty cool how you ended up becoming an awesome hero though. I'm sure my mom would be glad to know that you're doing well for yourself."

"Y-yeah, I pretty much became a fire rescue specialist because of her. I even work in the same station that she was a part of. Our fire chief, Obi-san, said that she was the best person he ever worked with."

"Glad to hear it." The green haired teen smiled, and it was the truth. Of course she didn't know a lot about her mother besides what her dad and Kayama told her. But she was happy to hear that the woman had such a positive influence on people. Even after her death.

After a few more seconds, the two broke their hug and took a moment to let their emotions settle down. Obviously, there was a lot more they would need to discuss in the future. But for now it was probably best for them to return to the other before they got worried.

* * *

Once Tokage and Ozehana returned to rest of the group, everyone agreed to go out and explore the campus a bit more. They still had quite a bit of time before they needed to start getting ready for their performance. So they chose to partake in some of the festivities and fill up on some more food.

After spending a full hour trying their luck at a few games, and watching Yanagi rack up a rather impressive win-streak on pretty much everything, a text alert came from Midoriya's phone. The boy was quick to check it and a slight smile appeared on his face upon reading it.

"What's up, Izuku?" Tokage asked.

"Do you guys mind if we head to the front of school real quick? There's somebody that I have to meet." He asked the group.

"Who is it?" Tetsutetsu inquired.

"You'll see."

With nothing better to do, everyone nodded and began heading towards the main gate. Upon arrival, Tokage was shocked to see non other Unohana standing near one of the booths with the two purple headed twins from the orphanage standing at his side.

"Brain-Boy!" The girl called out with a wave.

"Oh sweet, there you guys are." The quirkless teen waved back. Without a moment's hesitation the two twins sprinted towards Midoriya and wrapped the green haired boy in a tight hug.

"Midoriya-san!" They both shouted in perfect sync.

"Hey guys, how's it going?" He smiled at the two.

"We saw you on T.V. saving all those people!"

"Yeah, yeah, it was super cool!"

"Hey, now I know you guys see me over here!" Tokage kneeled down and opened her arms. Her gesture was instantly accepted as the two twins then rushed over and embraced her in another hug.

"We saw you on T.V. too, Tokage-san. You were super cool!"

"Yeah!"

"Well thanks, you little rascals. Should I consider you two as the first official members of my fanclub?" The girl said with a wide smile and a boisterous laugh.

After that quick display, the other students decided to chime and figure out exactly who it was that they were looking at.

"So, who are the kids?" Yanagi asked in her typically stoic tone of voice.

"I'm Kanao!" The first one said happily.

"I'm Kanae!" The second one followed up.

"And we're the Tsuyuri twins!" The two quirkless children completed what was certainly some sort of rehearsed introduction.

"These are some of the kids from the orphanage that I volunteer at." Midoriya explained. "I invited them and Unohana-san here so they could enjoy the festival."

"Oh yeah." Tetsutetsu injected. "I almost forgot that you go there like every other week."

"Really? You never told me about that." Katsuragi gave a surprised look to Midoriya. She had no idea that the boy was doing volunteer work in his free time. That was definitely something she would've liked to know beforehand.

"Y-yeah." The green haired boy scratched his cheek.

"Well I think it's admirable that Izuku dedicates so much of his time to helping others. Charity _is_ one of the sacred virtues after all. It is yet another example of how he uses his talents that have been bestowed upon him to make the world a better place. If only Setsuna could learn to take after his behavior." Shiozaki clasped her hands together and let a single tear drop from her eye.

"Hey! I help out there too y'know." The '_lizard tail splitter'_ user quipped.

"It's true." Unohana added. "Tokage-kun usually helps some of the younger kids when it comes to their math homework whenever they drop by."

"Well that's a surprise." Yanagi looked towards her best friend's girlfriend.

After a quick set of introductions, the Tsuyuri twins immediately went over to Katsuragi. It was their first time meeting a famous hero face-to-face. And it was hard for them to not feel starstruck in her presence. Something that the woman wasn't really used to these days.

"Oh wow, you're Blizzard! The number nine hero, right!" Kanao said while practically jumping up and down.

"That I am! It's nice to meet you two." The green haired heroine smiled.

"Hey, has anyone ever told you that you and Midoriya-san look a lot alike? Are you two related?" Kanae just came right out and said what she was thinking. Evidently this girl didn't have much of a filter.

Hoping to have a little bit of fun with this, Katsurgai stepped over to Midoriya and wrapped her arm around his shoulders before giving them a thumbs up. "That's right! Izuku here is actually my little brother. Couldn't you tell?"

-(o)-

_~Somewhere on Campus~_

"Hmm..."

"What's wrong, Juzo?" Awase asked the lipless teen.

"I have the strangest feeling that I missed something really important just now."

"Was there something that you not remember to do?" Tsunotori inquired.

The '_softening'_ quirk user couldn't really put his finger on it. But it was like an alarm just went off in his head. Deciding to just brush it off for now, all the boy did was give his two classmates a slightly confused shrug. "Who knows? Maybe I'll remember what it was later."

"Well in the meantime, let's hurry up and get to that ramen stand!" Awase then cheered. "We only have a couple of hours before we start and I'm fucking starving over here."

-(o)-

"WHAA!" The two girls nearly fell over from astonishment. "That's so cool!"

"I don't think she meant that literally, you two." The pink eyed teen tried to calm them down before they could cause a scene.

"Well, they certainly seem like an energetic pair." Yanagi said with a twinge of amusement in her voice.

After a few minutes standing around and talking, the group agreed to show the three quirkless visitors around the school for a bit. It wasn't often that outsiders got a chance to see all that U.A. had to offer. So they were more than excited to see what the best hero school in the country was all about. Besides, their entire reason for being there was to enjoy the fun and watch class 1-B's performance later on. So why not keep them entertained in the meantime?

"So, where would you two like to go? There's a ton of cool stuff going on today." Tokage asked the twins. "What are you guys into?"

"I wanna see some bugs!" Kanao raised her hand.

"I wanna see some flowers!" Kanae echoed.

"Well you guys are in luck!" Tetsutetsu chimed in before motioning towards Shiozaki. "Ibara is actually a member of the school's gardening club. I bet she'd love to give you guys a tour of the greenhouse. It's massive."

"Really?!"

"Indeed. It would be my pleasure to show such wonderful young children like yourselves the wonders of God's natural beauty." Said the vine haired girl.

"Cool!"

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's get this show on the road." Tokage laughed as she grabbed one of the girls and sat them atop her shoulders. "After that, we can introduce you guys to some of our classmates if we run into any."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Lily shrugged.

"Is that alright with you guys?" Midoriya then turned towards the others.

"I don't mind. Just as long as we make it back in time to get ready for our performance." The '_poltergeist'_ user said nonchalantly.

"Agreed." Katsuragi and Ozehana nodded.

And with that, the now group of eleven made the journey towards the school's greenhouse to give their guests a tour of the campus. With their class' big moment still a while away, they decided to spend the rest of their morning having a good time. And now that they had some V.I.P's, they were all the more determined to make sure that they put on an awesome show.

* * *

_~Somewhere Near U.A.~_

"Well then...I suppose it's time that we get started. Don't you think, La Brava?" A dapper fellow with white hair said to the small woman at his side.

"Yes, Gentle. This will be our biggest performance yet." The short, redhead smiled softly while fixing her camera.

"I agree with you wholeheartedly."

* * *

**A/N: So yeah, I decided to split the Cultural Festival up into two parts. I'll be honest, the whole Gentil Criminal and La Brava thing completely slipped my mind while writing this chapter out. But I found a way to add them into the story that will make things...interesting. But you'll have to wait until the next update to see what I'm talking about.**

**1\. Just to let everyone know, I think I finally found a good stopping point for this fic. Pretty much like all of my other fics, the main story will wrap up a few chapters after the joint training arc. But I plan on having a timeskip that will be about five to six chapters long. It's a bit too early for me to start brainstorming and outlining any new stories that I'll want to do. So I won't worry about that until after the timeskip. But I am open to ideas that you guys might want to see.**

**Like always, thanks for reading this dumpster fire of a FanFic and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.**


	50. Cultural Festival: Part 2

"So 1-B is putting on some kind of circus?" Ashido asked the other members of 1-A as they all made their way towards the school's auditorium.

"That's what it said on the school flyer." Jiro shrugged.

"I wonder what they're all gonna do." Kaminari then said. "It must be pretty crazy if it's gonna take a full hour."

"Whatever it is, it won't be better than what we have planned!" Kirishima said proudly with a toothy smile.

"Who knows, gero? With their quirks, I wouldn't put it past them to have something elaborate planned out. Pony-chan said that it was going to be fun to watch." Asui interjected.

"I'm certain that it will be quite the spectacle." Tokoyami simply stated. Secretly interested in what his friends in their sister class were going to do.

As the group of students finally managed to make it to venue, they were surprised to see a large crowd being ushered into the building by Kan and Present Mic. Even though it was the only major event going on at this particular time, the amount of people here was a shocker.

"Geez, what's with the mob?" Said Satou.

"A lot of the people here just want to see that Midoriya guy." Shinsou spoke up after appearing from out of nowhere. Something he had been doing quite frequently as of late. "Apparently Blizzard's also in there and some of the students are trying to get her autograph."

"That' so not fair!" Hagakure pouted. "We don't have a celebrity guests for our show!"

"It certainly makes sense though. The two of them were shown all over the front page of the news after that whole terrorist fiasco." Yaoyorozu surmised. Not only that, but Uraraka, Tokoyami, Tokage, Yanagi and Honenuki also gained a bit a bit of notoriety from that event. But Midoriya and his mentor were the only ones the news managed to get good pictures of.

"Well…we better hurry up and find our spots. We need still need to check out the competition after all." Jiro said in an aloof tone while walking towards the main entrance, with Kaminari quickly falling in step behind her. All the others did was nod before joining them.

* * *

"**Ladies, gentlemen, non-gendered individuals and children of all ages, welcome! I'm Neito Monoma, your glorious ringmaster. And it's my pleasure to welcome you all to class 1-B's Cultural Festival high flying circus bonanza!" **The blonde haired teen yelled into the microphone with much enthusiasm in his voice. The boy was dressed in your typical circus attire consisting of a red jacket, white pants and a black top hat. Along with a cane that he was able to procure from a costume shop not too far from the school.

"**We have quite the show in store for you all today, one that I'm sure you all will enjoy. Now, I know all of you aren't here just to listen to the sound of my beautiful voice. So let's get right down to business. For our first act, this duo is sure to leave with a case of the heebie-jeebies, Setsuna Tokage and her partner Togaru Kamakiri!"**

The crowd began cheering as the two green haired teens made their way onto the stage. Like the rest of their classmates, they were sporting a set of red and black costume tuxedos. With the only real difference being that Tokage was wearing a frilly skirt instead of pants. Yet, their curiosity was heightened when they noticed the large metal box that the '_razor sharp'_ quirk user was pushing to the center of the stage.

Monoma gave a quick thumbs up to Awase and Shoda, who were currently managing the audio equipment, and the two 1-B students let the duo's select choice of music start playing.

Without a word, Tokage gracefully stepped into the box. Making sure to give the audience a full view of the inside before Kamakiri began closing each one of the three panel doors. This particular performance may have been pretty old school, but it was definitely going to be enough to warm up the crowd.

Once the final door was shut, Kamakiri took a moment to perform some rather embarrassing hand motions to give his partner some time to get herself set. And after about five seconds of that, he then mumbled just loud enough for her to hear him from inside the box. "_You good?"_

"_Good to go!"_ She replied. "_Everything except for my head is shoved into the bottom box."_

"_Alright."_ Was all the boy said before producing a ridiculously large blade from the palm of his hand. Flashing it a bit to the crowd which was the signal for Monoma to say his lines.

"**What's this?!" Kamakiri-kun, what are you going to do with that thing?!"** The '_copy'_ quirk user pretended to sound confused.

Without so much as word, the sword wielding student simply turned around and shoved the blade right in the middle of the center box in a rather violent manner. The moment he did this, there were quite a few audible gasps from the people in the crowd. Especially from all the family members that were present. Way in the back of the audience, Kan could already hear the lecture that he was going to get from Nezu for allowing his students to do this.

Inside the box, Tokage was doing her best to not start laughing. Sure this was pushing the limits on Kan's safety rule, but the reaction that they were getting was definitely worth it. The next thing that happened was the boy producing yet another wide blade from his other arm and shoving it into the designated slot that connected the top box to the center. For anyone in the crowd who had never seen Tokage's quirk before, they could only assume that they just witnessed a murder happen right before their eyes. But the majority of the students who knew what was going on were just enjoying the show.

After deactivating his quirk, the next step was for Kamakiri to remove the top section of the box from the rest of the body. The boy waved it around for a bit before walking across the stage and handing it over to Monoma.

"**Kamakiri-kun, I know we're friends and all. But this is **_**not**_ **what you get people for an early Christmas present."** Monoma's joke managed to earn a few laughs. After a couple of more poorly written jokes, the blonde haired boy finally decided to finish out this part of their act by opening the panel to reveal Tokage's smiling severed head. Of course a few people were shocked by this, but the rest just laughed and gave a bit of applause.

"**You okay, Tokage-chan?"**

"**Totally, I feel like a weight was just lifted off my shoulders!"** She gave the crowd a toothy grin as she spoke into the microphone.

That line was met with roaring applause from the audience. As she looked around, the girl could see the two twins from the orphanage smiling at her from the front section standing next to Unohana and Ozehana. And that made her feel pretty good inside.

With one final line, Monoma allowed the two green haired teens to finish up the routine before dismissing them off of the stage. And now that they were done, all Tokage had to do was sit back and enjoy the rest of the show.

-(o)-

"**Alright everyone, it's sure been a fun time hasn't it?"** Monoma said to the crowd, who responded with a slurry of loud cheers. "**Now, as sad as this is to say, it's almost time for us to wrap things up here. But fear not! We've certainly saved the best for last! Hold on to your hats, folks. Because for our final act, please welcome the "Dynamic Duo" of class 1-B. Izuku Midoriya and Reiko Yanagi!"**

A silence fell over the audience as everyone turned their attention to either ends of the stage. But to their confusion, the two students didn't suddenly appear like everyone else did. This went on for a good ten or fifteen seconds and everyone simply became more perplexed as time went on. Was something wrong? Were they experiencing some sort of technical difficulties? Just when it looked like the crowd was starting to get restless, a pair voices from above caught their attention.

"**Hellstorm/Witching Whirlwind!"** In an instant, the entire auditorium became filled with thousands of tiny pieces of red, blue and gold confetti falling from the ceiling. Only for said confetti to begin spinning around the audience in a massive rainbow-like twister.

While everyone was distracted, they failed to notice the two figures suddenly appear from high up in the rafters land on the stage. Thankfully this was just what they needed to make their appearance all the more entertaining. Now that they two were finally in place, both telekinetic teens used their quirks to take control over all of the confetti and move it towards the front of the area.

The crowd watched in awe as a massive twister formed around the duo. With a quick nod to one another, Midoriya and Yanagi released their quirks and allowed the party decorations to fall to ground. Finally revealing themselves to the audience.

"**Now that's what I call a grand entrance!"** Monoma shouted into the mic as everyone clapped. **"Now folks, we're going to need two of you from the crowd to assist my friends here in their routine."**

A multitude of hands shot up as dozens of people volunteered themselves. But unbeknownst to them, the lucky duo had already been selected ahead of time.

**"You two lovely young ladies with the purple hair!"** The _'copy'_ quirk user pointed to Kanao and Kanae. **"Get on up here!"**

The pair of quirkless twin's eyes practically lit up with excitement before they ushered to stage by Bondo. Once they were in place, it was time to get the show on the road. The telekinetic duo then activated their quirks. While Yanagi began levitating the two children above the stage, Midoriya took the opportunity to use his one of his newest moves.

**"Vortex!"** The boy said confidently before surrounding them with the confetti. In reality, this move of his was just a modified version of _"Hellstorm"_. Except whereas that particular skill was set to work in a large area, this one was more of a short-range, defensive ability. Now that he had a better understanding of "psycho-waves", in theory he could use this to deflect long ranged attacks.

With part one now complete, it was time for the next step to begin. Behind the curtains on the left side of the stage, Tsuburaba and Honenuki began rolling out miniature balls of solidified air filled with sparklers that the brunette teen had created for this routine. All of which were quickly scooped up by the vortex.

"So pretty…" Hadou said with wide eyes from her spot in between Amajiki and Haya.

The crowd, especially the Tsuyuri twins, were in awe at the absolutely beautiful light display in front of them. The way the light from the sparklers reflected off of the confetti created an image similar to that of a wall of colored flames that illuminated the entire stage. It was such an amazing feat that some of the people in the crowd pulled out their phones and starting taking pictures of it.

"So cool, so cool, so cool!" Kanae laughed with much enjoyment in her voice.

"I'm glad you like it." Midoriya smiled at the girl.

**"What do you say, folks? Let's give another roaring round of applause for the "Dynamic Duo" of U.A.'s Class 1-B!"** Monoma once again shouted into the mic when he noticed that the sparklers were starting to die out. Signaling the end of the routine. As the applause rolled in, Yanagi brought the twins back down to earth. Naturally, they wanted to keep flying like a pair of birds. But they okay with just asking Midoriya to do it for them later.

With their routine finally over and done with, the telekinetic duo gave a quick wave to the audience before the remainder of the class all joined them on the stage to give one final bow. All of them soaking up the praise that they were getting from the other students and their families.

**"Thank you all for coming to our show. We hope you have a fabulous rest of your day! Please exit out of the main door of the auditorium in a neat and orderly fashion. And remember to vote for class 1-B later this afternoon for the school's award ceremony!"** The _'copy'_ quirk user couldn't help but plug in that last part.

With the show finally over, all that was left for the 1-B students was the arduous task of cleaning up the stage in preparation for 1-A's performance in a couple of hours.

* * *

Following the conclusion of their performance, the students of 1-B were all gathered outside of the auditorium. Overall, it seemed as though the crowd really enjoyed the show. And based on the compliments and praise that they were getting, it was very likely that they had a chance at winning the grand prize at the end of the day.

"Well, I'd say that was an overall success, huh?" Said Kendou to the rest of the class.

"Hell yeah!" Awase cheered. "The crowd was practically eating it up."

"It certainly went a lot better than I expected." Shoda echoed.

"I'm just glad that we can finally get out of these ridiculous costumes."

"I don't think they're that bad." Honenuki interjected. "Komori-chan and Kodai-chan did I pretty solid job with these."

"Hmm." The emotionless, black haired teen nodded.

"At least we finally got this out of the way. Now we can enjoy the rest of the festival." Tokage smiled.

To their knowledge, the only other major events left were the beauty pageant and class 1-A's concert performance. The first was set to take place in about twenty minutes, which Awase and Tsuburaba were definitely ready to see. While the later was going to serve as the closing act for the day. Even though they were supposed to be rivals classes, the 1-B students were actually looking forward to the show. Especially with all the hype around it.

As the conversations continued on Katsuragi, Kayama and the trio from the orphanage suddenly appeared to congratulate them on a job well done. Naturally, they were all glad to receive praise from the Japan's newest top hero.

"That was an excellent job out there. I'd say that your performance was the highlight of the day." The green haired heroine said sincerely.

"Certainly." Kayama agreed.

"Thanks, Blizzard!" The students all echoed.

"Are you going to stay for the rest of the festival?" Midoriya then asked his older sibling.

"Yes, I don't get a lot of days off. So I might as well enjoy this one as much as I can. Plus, it's been a while since we had some quality bonding time together." She replied. On top of that, the woman was in no rush to begin sorting through the mountain of new applications for heroes looking to join her agency once she got back.

"Yeah, I guess you're right about that."

"That's unless Tokage-chan has a problem with me taking up so much of her boyfriend's free time."

"Fine by me." The girl shrugged. "There's still a few places that we haven't had the chance to check out anyway."

"I'll find a way to make it up to you guys."

"It's fine. You don't have to do anything like that, onee-chan." The boy told her.

…

…

…

…

…

A dead silence immediately followed after Midoriya said those words. One that was almost impossible not to notice. Curious to see what that was all about, the boy turned only to be met with a multitude of shocked and perplexed faces from his classmates. For a split second, he was confused as to why mostly everyone was giving him such weird looks. But Honenuki was quick to bring him up to speed.

"Hey…does anyone want to pick up that phone?" The lipless teen looked around.

"What are y-"

"Because I called it!"

"Huh?"

"Oh my god, Juzo was right after all?" Awase stated.

"Well…I'll be damned." Monoma smirked.

"Wait, Midoriya-kun's really Blizzard's younger brother?" Komori asked.

"That's right!" Kanae said happily from her spot beside Unohana and her sister. "Blizzard herself told us earlier!"

_'Oh god dammit…'_ The boy internally groaned.

"Nice going there, freckles." Tokage gave him a toothy grin while placing a hand on his shoulder. Although she was well aware that the two telekinetic greenettes were technically siblings only because her boyfriend had Tatsumaki's cells in his body. She was definitely going to enjoy seeing how he tried to fix this little blunder of his. However, just before Midoriya could attempt to remedy his verbal folly the alarms all across the entire campus suddenly went off.

**"Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!"** An automated voice announced.

"Intruder? What?!"

"In the school?"

"Where?"

The students immediately got their answer when a man with white hair and a funky looking outfit suddenly appeared from beyond the treeline directly across from the auditorium. He was flying through the air at a pretty decent speed and appeared to be carrying another person on his back.

"Who the fuck is that?!" Awase shouted.

"A villain?" Kaibara wondered.

"How the hell did he get this far in?" Kayama wondered. "The alarm should've went off before he even got on campus."

It was then that Hound Dog along with Ectoplasm and ten of his clones came sprinting out from where the villain appeared. The two faculty members appeared to be in hot pursuit of the man, but couldn't catch him since they were stuck to moving on the ground.

"One of you catch that clown!" The dog themed hero snarled once he noticed the mob of students.

High above the ground, the tuxedo wearing individual looked down and noticed a rather large crowd of people moving throughout the area. Even though his master plan had been slightly delayed on account of him running into those teachers. He was ecstatic to see that his performance was going to have a live audience. Especially since all of their attention was now focused onto him.

"Excellent! Now La Brava, it's almost time for us to begin. I'll set you down at-"

**"Pull!"** Midoriya shouted.

The white haired man didn't even get a chance to move forward with his plan before him and his partner were abruptly yanked out of the air and forced to ground below right in front of the students. Both letting out a set of pained grunts as soon as they made contact with the dirt. The man immediately tried to stand on his feet, but that proved to be a costly mistake.

**"Scattershot!"**

**"Twin Impact!"**

The next thing the dapper intruder felt was ten separate pieces of Tokage's left arm hitting him in various areas across his body. Only for those attacks to be immediately followed up by ten even stronger impacts in the exact same spots as the previous ones.

"Tsuburaba-kun, capture him!" Kendou ordered the brunette boy.

"Got it!" Was all he said. **"Air Prison!"**

The _'solid air'_ quirk user cupped his hands around his mouth and instantly created an air tight cube around the two would be criminals. One that was far superior than the standard air bubbles that he could usually make. Unlike the rest, it would take a lot more than a strong punch to break this one.

"Hmm, nice job. It looks like you guys didn't need my help after all." Said Blizzard as she admired how quickly the hero course students worked together to subdue this intruder.

In mere seconds, Ectoplasm and Hound Dog finally caught up to the group and immediately surrounded the intruders. Now that they were able to get a good look at them, the students noticed that the other person was a short woman with ruby red hair wearing an almost comical amount of mascara around her eyes.

"Inui, what's going on?" Kayama asked the dog themed hero.

"We were doing our rounds through the woods when these two appeared. He's got some kind of elasticity quirk so it was hard to get a hold of him." The U.A. guidance counselor replied.

Now it was Ectoplasm's turn to speak. "Excellent job at capturing this man. You just saved us a lot of trouble."

"No problem, sir." They all replied.

"Did these poorly dressed buffoons' really think it was a good idea to break into a school full of pro's and hero students?" Monoma said ironically.

"They're certainly not the sharpest tools in the shed, huh?" Tokage chuckled.

"Unfortunately, the fact that he even got this far into the school is an issue. We're gonna need to report this is soon as possible. I'm sorry everyone, but it looks like we're going to have to cancel the rest of the Cultural Festival."

Everyone's eyes blew open at that declaration. The festival was cancelled? This wasn't good at all. Sure they understood that the schools security had just been compromised. But they took down the villains without even breaking a sweat. In fact, this could barely be classified as a minor inconvenience.

But as much as much as they wanted to protest against this decision, the students knew good and well that there was nothing that they could do about it. The school's reputation was already shaky enough as it is. And if people found out that they let the Cultural Festival go on after a villain broke in, there would be hell to pay from the media. After all, it wasn't like they could keep it a secret since the alert went out all over campus.

Although they felt bad that the rest of classes hard work suddenly went down the drain, all they could do now was hurry up and pick up the pieces of their now ruined day. While Kayama went ahead to bring the rest of the faculty up to speed, Kendou and Tokage were tasked with letting all of the class reps know that they needed to shut everything down. And Midoriya decided that he would escort Unohana and the others to the main gate before things got too crazy.

Their day of fun and relaxation was now officially over and done with….

* * *

Later that afternoon, everyone was lounging about in the dorms. There was a bit of a sour mood floating around the school due to sudden cancellation of the Cultural Festival. The worst of which surprisingly coming from Nejire Hadou. The blue haired teen was pretty distraught about not being able to compete in the school's beauty pageant. But she managed to take it in stride. Thankfully, there were no issues in shutting everything down and cleaning things up.

Now that he had some time to unwind, Midoriya was finally able to wrap his head around the conversation he had with Katsuragi shortly before the woman left. One centered around the fact that he actually had a conversation with the real Tatsumaki. Or more specifically, the remnants of her consciousness. Needless to say it was a shocker that his pseudo-sibling was already aware of the situation. But that the now deceased heroine told her to keep quiet about the entire thing until they had their little chat.

Truth be told, Midoriya did notice that he felt a bit off lately. It was like a fogginess in his mind had been cleared up and he suddenly had a ton of new ideas about how he could apply his quirk. Which were no doubt thanks to Tatsumaki's memories and knowledge merging with his own. This was all still a lot to take in though. The green haired boy had long since come to terms with the fact that the quirk he currently possessed wasn't truly his. And that the only reason he had it was because of sheer dumb luck. But the idea that a person's consciousness could be retained within a quirk was absolutely fascinating to him.

All for One had told him that he gifted people with quirks many times during his lifetime. And he couldn't help but wonder whether or not it was a frequent occurrence, or just some random side effect based on a number of different factors. It had to be, because even with the possibility that he wasn't the first person to experience something like this. He doubted that it was anything more than a fluke.

Either way, what's done is done. Tornado was truly gone and there was no point in lamenting over it any further. All he needed to do now was focus on getting stronger and living up to his predecessor's expectations. His raw power may have increased, but his overall control was still nowhere where it needed to be. Especially compared to Yanagi or Katsuragi.

***Knock, Knock*** The sound from his door brought the boy out of his mental ruminations.

"It's open!" He called out, only for Tokage to enter immediately after. Last he checked, his girlfriend was hanging out with the rest of the girls downstairs in the common area. Granted, it wasn't the first time that she decided to just randomly drop by for no reason. But what confused him was the blue notepad that the girl was carrying in her hand.

"Hey." Was all the green haired girl said before marching right over to his bed and taking a seat next to him. "I need your help with something."

"With what?" He tilted his head.

Instead of verbal response, Tokage flipped open the notepad and handed it right to him. Midoriya took a moment to read over the words written down on the page had to try really hard to suppress a groan at the title. **"Operation: Emo Union."**

"I know I'm probably going to regret asking, but what is this?" He said reluctantly.

"My fool-proof plan for getting Ghosty and Bird-Boy to go out on a date!" Tokage said with a confident smile.

_'She was serious about that?'_

Something told Midoriya that he should just pretend that he never saw this. But knowing Tokage and her near insatiable apatite for all things devious and comical, he had a feeling that he didn't really have a choice in the matter.

"You really want to try and get Reiko-san and Tokoyami-san together?"

"Hell yeah!" She shot back. "Those two would make an awesome couple. Both of them have the whole goth/emo vibe going on. And this is the perfect way for me to have some fun. I haven't gotten up to any mischief lately, and I'm starting to get _the itch_. It's either this or I start pulling pranks on the entire class."

Midoriya made a mental note to follow up on that later, because it sounded like an utter a disaster waiting happen. But he decided to humor the girl and look over what she had written down. As much as he didn't want to admit it, Tokage's plan was actually pretty good. She even made a flow chart of how exactly things were supposed to go. Obviously the girl was good at strategizing when it came to heroics class. But who knew that translated so well in other situations.

"I was planning on getting the two of them alone together during the Cultural Festival. But that pretty much went down the toilet. So I had to make some minor adjustments. Personally, I think that the two of us will be doing Ghosty a favor. The girl spends too much time locked up her room playing videogames anyway."

"You're gonna drag me into this no matter what, aren't you?" He gave her a dry look.

"You know me so well." She replied by ruffling his hair a bit.

What happened next definitely threw the boy off guard. Without so much as a warning, Tokage used both hands to push him back onto his bed and climb on top him. The girl then followed up by cupping her hands around his face and planting a hungry kiss on his lips.

"Y'know…you looked kinda cute during your performance today."

"Y-you think so?" He blushed.

"Sure do~."

She then melted into him, threading her fingers through his thick hair and pulling him in closer. Almost instinctively, his arms went around her waist, crushing her to his body. Things quickly heated up as the two became desperate for each other's touch. Drinking in every ounce of one another, but Tokage was the more aggressive one. She devoured his mouth with a predator like veracity. Her hands snaking under his shirt and roaming towards his chest. Feeling his racing heartbeat on her fingertips as the kissed intensified.

"Sorry to do this out of the blue, but I'm _really_ in the mood right now."

"It's fine." He gave her a wobbly smile.

That was pretty much the green light for the girl to finally do what she really came here for. She had been patient with the boy up until this point. But now it was time to get to the real fun. Her hands continued exploring underneath his shirt until her instincts fully took over. She pressed down even further until every inch of their bodies were melded together. All while continuing their passionate exchange. For a brief moment, she broke away from him to catch some air. But as he gazed up at her, Midoriya could see the almost feral look in the girl's moss green eyes. One that said she could devour him at any given moment.

"Take it off."

"What?" The red-faced head of broccoli sputtered.

"The shirt…take it off."

"A-are you sure?"

"Izuku, I've already seen you naked. You're damn right I'm sure!" Was her cheeky reply. She had to admit, she did find it cute how he still got flustered when they fooled around like this.

The boy hesitated for a moment. In the past, Midoriya would've felt a lot more nervous about this whole situation. But right now, that was far from what he was currently feeling. Mainly because his teenage hormones were overwriting his judgement. He did as he was told and took his shirt off in one swift motion, and an eager smile quickly formed on the girl's face. Midoriya said nothing as Tokage proceeded to run her fingers all over his exposed chest and stomach. She had been waiting to do this the whole day and the boy could tell with how happy she looked doing it.

With one finger, she traced the outline of his broad shoulders, carefully touched his toned stomach, and sometimes threw a smile his way that made the boy lose his breath. Those caresses felt weird for Midoriya at first, especially over the still sensitive scar tissue on his torso. But they quickly made him feel good in a different manner as he began to enjoy them. And it sure helped that Tokage was right in front of him making his heart jump in excitement.

As for the girl, her mind was becoming more and more hazy with each passing second. Sure he wasn't the most ripped guy on planet Earth, but Midoriya's body was like a work of art. His toned abs and silky smooth skin were sending jolts of electricity through her fingers. She took a moment to admire the rugged scars that graced his form. More specifically, the faded handprint that covered a good part of his left shoulder. She still couldn't believe that Bakugou got away with doing this to him for years, and she was definitely going to find a way to pay him back for terrorizing her boyfriend for most of his life. But right now she had more important things to worry about.

While Midoriya's brain had turned to mush at the feeling of Tokage rubbing her hands all over him, the girl just let her raging hormones take over.

In a moment of pure passion, the green haired girl leaned forward and bit his nipple. Making him flinch and come back to reality.

"Hey!" Letting out a small yelp as he sat up. "I never did that to you..."

Tokage shot back with a knowing smile. "Do you want to?"

All remaining functioned stopped in the boy's brain at that proposition. And the girl didn't even wait for him to try and answer.

In one fluid motion, Tokage's stegosaurus t-shirt was off of her body. Revealing the royal blue bra that she had been wearing underneath.

Midoriya fell short of words for a couple of seconds as he admired the sight before him. He had no idea that a simple piece of clothing could make his mind go fuzzy so quickly. And the look on his face made it all worth it for the girl.

With her second wind already hitting, Tokage brought herself back down and resumed the kisses. With Midoriya more than happy to reciprocate and wrap the girl in his arms. However, as things were getting even more intense between the young couple, the universe decided to throw a curveball at them in the form a knock coming from the boy's door. Abruptly ending their make-out session.

"Who's th-"

"Ignore it!" Tokage cut him off by pressing her lips against his. Only for the unwanted knock to come once again. The absolute last thing she wanted right now was for them to lose all the moment they just gained. But despite her wishes, whoever was at the door just couldn't take the hint.

_'Oh for fucks sake! It's like we're cursed or something!'_

With a mind running on nothing but pure lust, adrenaline and irritation, the green haired girl suddenly hopped off the bed and marched towards the door. She was so quick in fact, that Midoriya didn't even get chance to stop her before she opened it up and poked her head in between the crack.

"What is it!" The girl said angrily to an absolutely confused looking Awase.

"Tokage?! What the fu-"

"What do you want?!"

"Where's Midori-"

"He's busy!"

"O-oh okay, well can he-"

"No he can't, come back later!"

"But we need help-"

"Come…back…later…."

The headband wearing teen was quick to get the point and immediately walked away from the door with a furious blush on his face. Obviously not wanting to incur the wrath of Tokage for butting in on something he could only speculate as the young couple's private time.

With their unwanted distraction now gone, the girl shut the door and made sure to lock it behind her. Just in case someone else wanted to come and ruin her fun. From his spot on the bed, Midoriya finally got a good look at the state Tokage was in. The green haired girl's face was beet red and she had a look in her eyes that he had never seen before. One that displayed nothing but impure intentions.

"H-hey, maybe we should t-take a break and cool off a bit." The boy nervously suggested.

With absolutely no intention of doing anything even remotely close to that. Tokage did something that threw Midoriya for quite a loop. The girl reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. Casually discarding the piece of underwear by tossing it on top of his laptop. Leaving the boy gapping at her now fully exposed chest.

"If you think we're going to stop now, especially after you got me all hot and bothered like this. Then you're sorely mistaken, freckles. I'm at bat and I'm looking to go to second base…_at leas_t."

All Midoriya could do was visibly gulp before Tokage separated the top and bottom halves of body. The girl instantly locked her legs around his hips and pinned his arms behind his head before he even had a chance to react.

"And for the record…I'm _not_ going to be gentle~." She said with an even more intense lust in her eyes than before. In the back of his mind, Midoriya knew that he not getting out of this situation anytime soon.

* * *

**A/N: Well…that certainly took a left turn, didn't it? This was my first time writing anything even remotely close to "smut". I don't plan on having another one of those scenes until after the time skip when they're actually adults. But I think Tokage's waited long enough for some more…mature action. **

**1\. Next chapter is going to be a bit of a fun one, something like a "triple date". I'll let you guys take a guess at who the parties involved in that will be. After that, we finally get into the Joint Training Battles. **

**2\. Just a quick FYI, there's a poll on my page for what my next story is going to be. Whenever you get a chance, go ahead and vote on that. I'll come to a decision before the end of this fic. **

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review.**


	51. Group Date

Reiko Yanagi wasn't exactly antisocial. Sure the girl was an otaku who preferred playing video games, spending an inordinate amount of hours on her computer and watching old era anime and cartoons. But she wasn't a hermit. The ghostly girl functioned more than well enough in social settings. She just preferred not to at times.

But when Tokage randomly invited her to hangout today, she didn't really have a reason to say no. The only thing she had planned for the day was to kick back and catch up on some of her favorite manga series. Which was something that could wait until later. Besides, if she was going to become a hero, being more inclined to social settings was a part of the job that needed to be mastered.

The girl never really had a lot of friends growing up. There were a few people she would chat with here and there. And occasionally explore various parts of Aichi Prefecture with. But overall, she could count the number of real friends that she had on one hand.

The same was pretty much the truth when she got into U.A.. As everyone could piece together, Midoriya was the person she could consider her best friend. The two had a lot in common and meshed together pretty well. Plus, he was the other half of the unofficial "Dynamic Duo" of 1-B. And as much as it made her cringe to admit it, Tokage was the other person that she was closest to in their class. The girl was way too energetic and over the top at times, but she was nice to be around when you got used to her antics.

However, what confused her the most about this entire situation was the group that she was currently on the way to some bowling alley in downtown Musutafu with. Aside from the green haired couple were Kyoka Jiro, Denki Kaminari and Fumikage Tokoyami from 1-A. As far as she could recall, neither Midoriya or Tokage had interacted with the blonde and purple haired teens that much. But they were more than familiar with the '_dark shadow'_ user due to their partnering up for the whole Derelicta situation.

As they all drew closer to the aforementioned bowling alley, Yanagi had a weird feeling in her gut. One that told her that she was being set up or something. But for the life of her couldn't quite figure out exactly what that _something_ was. So for the moment, the '_poltergeist'_ user simply chose to play it by ear and keep her guard up. Making sure to keep an eye on the green haired girl just in case she pulled something.

"Man, this place looks awesome!" Kaminari said with glee as the group of six stepped into the building.

The bowling alley seemed to be pretty lively and filled with all manner of people and groups filling up the lanes. The smell of pizza was permeating the air and the sounds of pins being knocked over practically assaulted their ears.

"I wasn't expecting this palace to be so packed on a Saturday." Jiro said nonchalantly. "We're lucky that we got a reservation."

Tokage started shaking Midoriya with excitement. "Oh man...I'm so looking forward to this!"

"Yeah."

"I guess we must proceed with procuring some appropriate footwear." Tokoyami began walking towards the counter.

"Yeah." Yanagi stoically agreed.

When the group approached the counter, they were greeted by a young woman with dark green eyes and a medium sized scar in the middle of her right cheek. She had beautiful auburn hair that was tied into a neat bun at the top of her head that went pretty well with her employee uniform. The woman wasn't paying attention to them at first and Tokage had to call out to her to get her attention. Curiously, the moment she looked their way, she paused briefly when she locked eyes on Midoriya. But seemed to shake it off before putting on her best smiling.

"Hello everyone! How may we help you?!" The woman, who's name was Shimisu judging by her name tag, spoke to them in a cheery tone.

"Hello, we have a reservation. Tokage, party of six." Said the green haired girl.

"Ah yes, we have you guys at lane nine for one hour."

"Sure do!"

"Wonderful, what size shoes do you all need?" She then asked. The students were quick to tell the woman their sizes and didn't have to wait long before receiving the necessary attire. With everything now in order, they were all ready to begin their game.

"Um, excuse me? You wouldn't happen to be Izuku Midoriya would you?" Shimisu asked.

"Yeah." Midoriya nodded.

"Oh wow, I saw you on the news with Blizzard a while back during that whole terrorist disaster. You're pretty awesome!"

"Oh wow, you're too kind." The boy blushed at the sudden compliment.

"Keep up the good work. I'll _definitely_ be keeping my eye on you when you officially go pro."

"Thanks."

"Come on, we need to hurry up! We're burning precious time here, freckles." Tokage suddenly hooked her arm around Midoriya's and walked towards their designated lane. All while holding a slightly miffed expression on her face.

What the group of students didn't see however was Shimisu's face shift to a dark expression once their backs were to her. One that was a mixture of displeasure and malice.

'_So...that's Nitro's little friend, huh? He's going to be a problem in the future, I can already tell. I'll need to find a way to get him and Blizzard out of our hair once we resume operations. Right now, he's the only leverage that I have against that boy in case things go belly-up again. But I'm sure that we can come up with something after we bust our other members out of prison.'_

-(o)-

After about ten minutes, the group of U.A. students were already well into the first game. Now that she finally had the opportunity to put her plan into action, Tokage made sure that Yanagi and Tokoyami were forced to sit right next to each other. And for the most part, things seemed to be progressing just as she hoped.

Like they had previously rehearsed, Midoriya, Jiro and Kaminari would do everything that they could to direct the conversation towards either of the two emo teens. And set the other up for a response while Tokage kept nudging the two in the right direction.

"Forgive me for asking…" Yanagi suddenly changed topics. "But how do you all decide to hang out today?" Was the million yen question on the grey haired girl's mind.

"It was actually pretty random." Tokage was the one to answer. "We ended up running into Jiro and Kaminari here on our way back from our family dinner the other day and just started chatting."

"Really?"

"Mhmm." The green haired girl nodded. "On the way, we ended up finding out that Jiro and Izuku here actually live pretty close to each other."

"Yeah, it was actually a surprise." Midoriya then added.

"It makes sense though." The rocker teen stated. "I used to see you on my way to school all the time before we moved into the dorms. Tokoyami too."

That much was true seeing as all three students lived in Shizuoka.

"On the way back, she ended up telling us about this bowling alley and I just had to check it out. And we kinda decided to just go as a group."

"I kinda just asked Tokoyami to come with us on a whim and he agreed to it." Kaminari put in his two cents.

"And I am most gracious for your offer." The bird themed teen bowed his head.

"Hey, have you had a chance to talk to Kuroiro yet? I think you two would get along really well. You both have that whole darkness vibe going." Tokage joked. "Actually...you him and Ghosty here would make a pretty solid team."

"I am familiar with him to a degree. But I do agree that a partnership would be advantageous given our quirks."

"It wouldn't be the worst matchup." Yanagi stoically added.

'_Geez...these two are not making this easy.'_ The '_lizard tail splitter_' user groaned. And they were doing so well up until this point.

"Anyways, how are things in 1-B going? I'm still surprised that all you guys managed to pass the provisional license exam." Kaminari asked the trio.

"Pretty well." Midoriya replied. "What about you guys?"

"As good as they could be, I guess. Everyone gets along for the most part."

"Meaning?"

"He means that everyone not named Bakugou and Todoroki get along. Those two couldn't be bothered to even socialize on a good day. I'm still surprised that Bakugou agreed to be the drummer for our performance. He was still a total pain in the ass though." Jiro slightly huffed.

"It sucks that you guys didn't get a chance to perform. I was really looking forward to seeing that."

"Indeed." Tokoyami nodded.

"Weren't you supposed to be the bass player?" Yanagi asked the bird boy.

"Yes...It was difficult, but I was able to learn how to perform at an acceptable level."

"Too bad, I would've liked to see you play."

'_And we're right back on track!' _Tokage silently cheered.

Midoriya then stood up seeing as it was his turn on the lane. The boy picked up the bright red bowling ball off the rack and paused for a moment before proceeding to score his first strike of the game.

Never one to miss an opportunity at a little mischief, and since it was now her turn anyways, Tokage hopped up from her seat and walked over to the boy. However, Midoriya wasn't paying her any attention. Otherwise he would've been prepared for what happened next.

***POW!*** The sound of the girl's hand impacting with his butt echoed slightly. Causing the boy to yelp out loud.

"Nice job!" She smiled.

"T-thanks…" He said sarcastically before going back to his seat. Hoping that none of the other groups saw that (They did).

"Y'know Midoriya…." Kaminari said to the '_telekinesis'_ user. "I'd much rather have you in our class than Bakugou. You're not one of those guys who thinks he's a big shot just because he's got a megastrong quirk."

"I try not to be."

"He has a point though, Midoriya-kun. It's pretty widely accepted that you're the strongest amongst the first years."

"That's pretty obvious at this point." Yanagi backed up Tokoyami's claim.

"You guys really give me too much credit." The boy blushed a bit.

"Not really, dude. If we had you in 1-A, our class would be pretty much unstoppable."

"Honestly, I wouldn't mind having Kan-sensei over Aizawa-sensei. He seems way more chill." Jiro stated.

Now that he thought about it, Midoriya did wonder what the selection process was for assigning each of the hero course students to their classes. Obviously there had to be some kind of methodology to avoid an imbalance. Even then, the divide was still pretty obvious. But the more he pondered over it, the more it made sense.

Class 1-A was composed of students with more destructive and flashy quirks. While class 1-B was primarily made up of those with support and close combat types quirks. But factoring in how Kan was still a new teacher and Aizawa could nullify any quirk at will. It made a lot more sense how it might have been decided.

"Well I wouldn't mind the teachers switching up the classes a bit. Maybe we can give you guys Monoma and we get Tokoyami here. Now that would be a fun time! Don't you think, Ghosty?" Tokage suddenly interjected once her turn was over.

"I think Tokoyami-kun would fit in pretty well with our class." The grey haired teen stoically added. For a brief moment, Tokage could swear that she saw the fainted ghost of a smile appear on Yanagi's lips.

'_Oh yeah, she totally has the hots for him.'_

-(o)-

The next hour practically flew by before the group had to wrap up their game. Unsurprisingly, Yanagi was the overall victor. The girl had gotten an absolutely insane fifteen strikes in a row. Apparently her talent for gaming extended to other areas as well. Tokage protested this quite a bit, claiming that the girl used her quirk to cheat somehow. But that was mainly because she was a bit of a sore loser.

At the moment, they were all walking along the streets of downtown Musutafu. They still had a good three hours before their curfew. But no one was ready to head back to the school just yet. Which was exactly what Tokage needed to enact part two of her master plan.

"Hey Ghosty…." The green haired girl looked to her friend.

"What is it?"

"Didn't you say the other day the latest chapter of that horror manga you really like just came out? The one about the guy with the parasite quirk."

"You mean "_Leech"_, the Korean series?" Tokoyami raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah!" Tokage snapped her fingers. "That's the one."

"It did."

"Well I'm pretty sure there's a manga shop not too far from here. Since we're nearby, why don't we stop by and see if they have it?"

"I'm fine with that." The '_poltergeist'_ user said stoically. Although on the inside, she had to contain herself from making a beeline right to the shop.

"This would be a perfect time to procure a copy." The bird boy added.

"Actually...I just got a text from my mom." Jiro interjected while looking down at her phone. "She was hoping that I could stop by my parent's store before heading back."

"Oh man, I would love to go check the place out!" Kaminari smiled at the rocker teen.

"Honestly, I was hoping that we could get something to eat. I kinda worked up an appetite in the bowling alley." Midoriya then said.

It seemed that they were now at an impasse. Kaminari looked really excited about going to the music shop. Yanagi didn't want to waste the opportunity to pick up the latest copy of one of her favorite monthly series. And since Midoriya wanted to go get food, Tokage would more than likely join him.

Unbeknownst to the two emo teens, this was all planned. They needed an opportunity to get the two of them alone. And since Tokoyami was also a fan of those horror type stories, specifically the one that Tokage mentioned, this was the perfect time for the two of them to bond.

"I'm actually feeling pretty hungry too." The devious greenette than said. "How about we just split off from here and call it a day?"

"Fine with me..." Jiro shrugged. Hoping to get this over with as soon as possible. She didn't even really get a text from her mom. But that was just the best excuse that she could come up with.

Without even giving the Tokoyami or Yanagi a chance to respond, Tokage took Midoriya by the hand and started walking in the opposite direction. "We'll see you guys later!" She said with a friendly wave.

"Yeah, we'll catch you in the dorms, dude." The '_electrification'_ user said before he and Jiro also walked away at a brisk pace. Leaving the two alone in the middle of the semi-busy street.

"Well then...I supposed we might as well venture over to that store." Tokoyami then said. The boy was still a bit confused at his classmate's sudden odd behavior.

"Yeah, might as well." Yanagi shrugged.

It was only when the emo duo were about halfway down the street did the grey haired girl receive a text notification from her phone. She quickly pulled it out of her pocket only to see that it was Tokage of all people.

T-Rex: Have a fun rest of your date!

T-Rex: I'll cover for you if you plan on staying out late. I'm rooting for ya' Ghosty!

In all fairness, Yanagi really should've seen something like this this coming. Tokage was liable to do stuff like this at any given moment. Looking back on the last hour and some change, it became very apparent to the girl what was really going on here. Especially given the somewhat peculiar behavior that her other classmates had while they were at the bowling alley.

However, as much as she wanted to be annoyed at her friends setting her up on what could essentially be called a surprise "book date". The girl chose to play it cool for now. Primarily because she really did want to pick up a copy of that manga series. And Tokoyami was probably the best company to have for this kind of thing. They did have similar taste in literature after all.

'_I don't even want to know how Setsuna-chan convinced Jiro-san and Kaminari-kun to go along with this nonsense. She probably had some dirt on them or something. I'm going to have a little chat with those two when I get back….'_

* * *

After successfully getting away from Yanagi and Tokoyami, the young couple decided to stop by a convenience store on the way back. Midoriya was being serious when he said that he was feeling a bit hungry earlier. Which didn't do much to alleviate any of the guilt that he was currently feeling for abandoning his friend like that. And Tokage had the bright idea that they should try and cook something back at the dorms. Both of them were pretty decent when it came to working around a kitchen. So it seemed like a good idea at the moment.

The two greenettes were busy chatting away as they approached the door. In fact, they were so deep in conversation that both teens failed to notice another person coming out of the store just as they were walking in. Causing the '_telekinesis'_ user to blindly walk right into them.

"Ugh…" Midoriya rubbed the side of his head before apologizing. "Sorry about that."

"Izuku-kun?"

The boy raised his eyes and his heart almost leapt out of his chest at what he immediately saw. Ashen blonde hair with piercing red eyes. It was only after that sudden shiver subsided did he finally take in the rest of the person's appearance. Instead of an angry looking teenager with a massive superiority/inferiority complex. What he got was a middle aged woman with flawless skin.

"Bakugou-san?"

"Well shit! Fancy running into you here, huh?" Mitsuki Bakugou said with a slight bit of astonishment in her voice. It had been years since the last time Midoriya had actually seen the woman. As far as he could recall, that was before the Bakugou family had moved across the city due to Masaru getting a new position at his job.

"Y-yeah…it's been a while."

"Geez, I remember when you were barely tall enough to reach my knees. Now look at you! I was shocked as shit when I saw you in the Sports Festival. How have you been?"

"I've been doing pretty well." The boy answered a bit nervously.

"So I'm guessing that this is Bakugou's mom?" Tokage asked her boyfriend. Even though it was blatantly obvious based on the woman's appearance.

"Yeah."

"And who might you be?" The ashen blonde woman queried.

"Hello ma'am, I'm Setsuna Tokage. Izuku's girlfriend."

"Well you gotta be shittin' me! You have a girlfriend now too? I guess you're all grown up no, huh?."

"I guess." The boy awkwardly laughed.

It was then that Mitsuki's face shifted to a slightly somber expression. One that the boy couldn't ever recall seeing on the woman ever before.

"Anyways, listen…since you're here I'd like to apologize for all the nonsense that my dumbass son put you through. I wasn't even aware of it until the teachers from U.A. came to our house after that whole kidnapping fiasco."

"What?" Midoriya looked at the woman.

"I had a feeling that something happened between the two of you after you suddenly stopped showing up at our house all those years ago. And after listening to what the principal had to say, I can finally see why. If I had known Katsuki was bullying you all that time, I would've done more to shove my foot up his ass."

"Well…there's really no point in getting hung up on it now, Bakugou-san. We're not in middle school anymore and U.A.'s done a better job at making sure things like that don't happen. Besides, it seems he's learned to exercise some restraint."

In a different life, Midoriya may have tried to defend Bakugou from the wrath of his mother and downplayed all the harassment that he went through. But that version of himself was long gone by now. He didn't owe anything to the explosive blonde and had no reason to pull his punches.

"I still can't believe that shitty school let it go on for that long. Those quack teachers really thought they could try and profit off of my son somehow. Y'know, I read in the news a couple of weeks ago that Aldera Middle School is currently under investigation and that a lot of teachers have already been laid off. Tch...serves that bunch of incompetent fools right if you ask me!"

"Wow, really?" Tokage raised an eyebrow.

That was certainly a shocker to Midoriya. Hearing that his old middle school was on the chopping block definitely sent a slight bit of warmth down his spine. In fact, it made a lot of sense. If word got out that they were letting students get away with harassing and assaulting others and forging records. Then that was already grounds for the principal to be fired. And no doubt any official investigation just opened up an even bigger can of worms. Because Midoriya highly doubted that Bakugou was the first or last offender in recent years.

"Yeah, pretty wild, huh?" Mitsuki smirked. "Hey, I have an idea! How about we set up a dinner some time? I haven't seen Ko-chan in years. Besides, I doubt that my idiot son has actually apologized to you for what he did. And I want to be there to make sure that he's sorry for causing you and your mother so much grief."

There were at least fifty different reasons why Midoriya thought that was a terrible idea. And despite him wanting to accept the kind gesture, he knew deep down that the last thing he needed was Bakugou being forced to apologize to him in front of his family. The boy hadn't bothered him ever since the start of the new semester. So Midoriya wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.

'_I don't get how this lady would think that would go over well.'_ Tokage's thoughts were identical to her boyfriend's.

"I appreciate the offer, Bakugou-san. But I'm going to have to decline. To be perfectly honest, I'd rather not deal with your son if I don't have to." Midoriya gave her an apologetic bow.

Mitsuki simply tapped a finger to her chin in contemplation before seeing where the boy was coming from. In all honesty, she was hoping that she would be able to do something herself to mend some of the damage. But considering the green haired boy quite literally spent a majority of his life being terrorized by her son. She didn't blame him for wanting to keep contact to a minimum.

"Don't worry, I get it. Anyways...I have to get going, it was nice seeing you again, Izuku-kun. Say hello to your mother for me! Have a good evening you two!" The woman waved as she began walking towards her car.

"You too!" The young couple waved back.

"Well…that was random." Tokage joked.

"Mhmm." Midoriya simply nodded.

"I see where Bakugou gets his _charming_ personality from."

"Yeah well…at least his mother knows when to reel it in."

"Anyways…let's hurry and get the ingredients!" Was all the green haired girl said before grabbing him by the hand and pulling him into the store.

* * *

By the time the two greenettes made it back to the dorms, they were surprised to see that the common area was actually empty. Which was a rare occurrence considering it was a Saturday night. Normally their classmates would be having their weekly video game tournament right about now.

"_Izuku, thank God you're here!"_ Pony Tsunotori suddenly popped out from the kitchen and shouted in her native English while frantically waving around a small blue box.

"_Pony-san, what's wrong?"_ The boy asked.

"_I need your help!"_

"With what?" Tokage was the next to speak.

"_I was trying to make some takoyaki balls and rice for dinner. But I have no clue what half this stuff even says…most of it's in kanji! Dammit, why can't you Japanese people just stick to one writing system?"_ The horned teen rubbed her hair in a distressed fashion.

Normally, Honenuki was the one to give the girl help when it came to her issues regarding understanding Japanese. But apparently the lipless teen was off with Awase and Tetsutetsu doing god knows what. Midoriya and Tokage simply glanced at one another before smiling.

"Don't worry Pony, we'll give you a hand. Mark my words, we're going to make the best damn takoyaki you've ever had!" The '_lizard tail splitter' _user announced confidently.

"You guys are the best!" The horned teen nearly cried tears of joy…and slight hunger.

* * *

_~Class 1-A Dorms~_

A little further down the road, Jiro and Kaminari had also just made their return. The secretive couple felt a bit bad for ditching Tokoyami and Yanagi like that. But sacrifices had to be made to keep their agreement with Tokage.

"Kyoka-chan, Kaminari-kun, welcome back!" Yaoyorozu greeted them.

Pretty much all of the 1-A students were in the common area gathered around the television in preparation for their class movie night.

"Where were you two at all afternoon?" Ashido asked.

"Jiro was helping me look at guitars to buy at her parent's shop. We may not have gotten the chance to play at the Cultural Festival. But I'm interested in playing during my free time." The '_electrification'_ quirk user told him their practiced alibi.

"Are you sure that your grades can handle that, dude?" Sero joked at the boy's expense.

"Hey, screw you man! I've been doing a lot better." The boy pouted.

Jiro took a moment to look around the room and noticed that there were still a few members of their class missing. Namely, Shinsou, Todoroki and Bakugou. "Where's everyone else?"

"Shinsou-kun's asleep in his room and we have no clue where Tokoyami-kun went off to, gero." Asui stated.

"And naturally Bakugou-kun and Todoroki-kun pretty much told us to screw off." Uraraka followed. "But what else is new? It's not like they ever bothered to join us anyway."

Despite being the two most powerful students in the class, the '_explosion'_ quirk user and the son of the now number one hero were the most antisocial duo in 1-A. Despite their best efforts, the rest of the group had all but given up on trying to include them in class activities. Especially since neither one has been particularly friendly towards them.

The only person who actively tried to pursue a friendship with Bakugou was Kirishima. But even the '_hardening'_ quirk user stopped trying a while ago. And even though he wasn't exactly mean about it, Todoroki was just cold to anyone who attempted to talk to him.

"Well, if those two don't want to participate then there's no point in trying to convince them. It would just be wasted effort." Yaoyorozu said in what could be construed as an annoyed tone. Although Aizawa had given her the task of making sure that they weren't alienated from the class. The black haired teen had long since reached her wits end with those two.

"Oh well." The rocker teen shrugged. "So what are we watching?"

"Some movie that Toru-chan picked out, gero."

"You guys are gonna love it. It's some old American movie called '_The Notebook'_!"

'_Why do I have the feeling that this is another one of those cheesy romance flicks?'_ The minds of every boy in the class echoed simultaneously.

* * *

_~Tokyo University~_

There were very few times when Sasuke Unohana found himself completely stumped when conducting research on one of his experiments. But this proved to be quite the special occasion for the quirkless genius. Inside one of the labs in the school's chemistry department, he was hard at work trying to figure out the nature of the quirk bullets he bought from the yakuza a while back.

"These things are made from human cells?" The boy said in bewilderment. This discovery was certainly a surprise to him. Especially since he expected these things to be crafted from some sort of drug. But as he continued looking through his microscope, he couldn't help but feel a slight bit of annoyance welling up in his chest.

'_This is going to set my plans back a bit. I'm guessing that these bullets were fashioned using someone's quirk, whoever that poor soul may be. But it looks like I'll have to do a bit of research into replicating living cells in the meantime.'_

Even with this small hiccup, the quirkless boy was confident that he'd be able to find a way to work around this in no time. After all, bullets that temporarily or permanently erased quirks was a very lucrative business opportunity that he'd be foolish to pass up. And now that the Shie Hassaikai were all behind bars, the market for this type of product was wide open.

He was certain that Derelicta was going to be making their move again in the future. And he had a pretty good feeling that they would be asking for his services again when that happened. There were rumblings that the group was still recruiting people in the shadows. Including more children around middle and high school age. So it was all but guaranteed that he had a lot of money coming his way once he learned how to reproduce these bullets on a larger scale.

After taking a peak at his phone, Unohana concluded that he should wrap things up for the night. It was getting pretty late and there wasn't much else that he could do right now. So after cleaning up a bit and securing the cartridge containing the quirk destroying weapons, the pink eyed teen began making his way out of the building.

'_It's too bad I can't get my hands on whoever's cells were used to make these things. If I had them, I'd be rolling in cash by the end of next year. Maybe I should look into that when I get the chance? Who knows, they could prove to be a very useful piece for my future plans….'_

* * *

**A/N: A bit of a "short" chapter this time around. I mainly just wanted to use this as an intermission before starting the Joint Training Arc. Also to get a look into how 1-A and some of other favorite characters and groups were doing. Right now I have the next part going for 3-4 chapters, but I promise that it won't be boring. Especially since it's likely that they'll all be 8,000+ words a piece. **

**1\. That Mitsuki Bakugou scene was pretty much just to give an update on the whole Aldera situation that Tsukauchi was talking about earlier in the story. I never really got a chance to touch on that in this story. But just know that everyone's favorite detective has been hard at work. I'm not very well versed in the Japanese school system, so I don't know how any real investigations would go. So forgive me if it felt a bit weird. **

**2\. Allow me take the time to give some special and long overdue shoutouts to some of my favorite readers/writers. A few of them have helped me make this story way better than what I had originally planned. You guys should definitely read some of their works when you get the chance.:**

**-Visionary0 (AO3)**

**-JKaner1005 (AO3)**

**-Matty014 (AO3)**

**-Unity-In-Silence (FF)**

**-Bucio (FF)**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review. **


	52. Joint Training Arc: Part 1

The following morning, the students of 1-B were all making their way over to the training grounds main building. It went without saying, but everyone was more than a bit excited. After all, today was the day of their inter-school training session with Shiketsu. But that wasn't all they had to be excited for. Today was also the day that they got to test out the new winter versions of their hero costumes.

Overall, there were only a few minor changes that hero course hopefuls made to their outfits. Yanagi pretty much just added a pair of black leggings to her costume. Kendou was now wearing actual pants. Tokage's bodysuit had another layer of lining on the inside of it, which was a major help since she absolutely hated the cold. And Midoriya was wearing a thicker shirt under his black vest and jacket. On top of that, the green haired boy was sporting the previous version of his helmet. Since the last one still had a bullet hole in it.

"Well, if it isn't class 1-A!" Neito Monoma shouted in a smug tone towards the other end of the sidewalk.

The students all turned their attention ahead to see class 1-A along with Aizawa and Present Mic at their side. Half of them were dressed in their hero costumes while the rest were sporting their usual school uniforms.

"It's a shame that so many of you failed the provisional licensing exam! I was truly looking forward to facing off against you all. But alas, you'll just have to sit on the sidelines and watch the magnificent glory that is our class-" The _'copy'_ quirk user continued before Kendou silenced him with a forceful chop to the back of the neck.

"Sorry about him guys." The orange haired class-rep apologized.

"It's fine…" Yaoyorozu waved her off.

"You all can chat when we get inside the building." Aizawa then stated in with a tired groan. "Our guests are already waiting on us."

With their usual introductions out of the way, the mob of first year students were ushered into the building and headed over to the main monitoring room. There, they were met with not only all of the first year teachers including Snipe and Thirteen. But a group of ten students dressed in their hero costumes as well. All sporting the signature Shiketsu style hats that they were required to wear with their uniforms.

Among them were some pretty interesting looking characters. One was a boy who was covered in fur from head to toe. Another was dressed in a black overcoat with light purple hair. And the most notable person was a tall boy with a buzz cut with various pipes all over a costume.

"Inasa Yoarashi." Honenuki said in a low tone.

"You know him?" Awase asked the lipless teen.

"He's the guy who got first place on the recommendations exam. The one who decided not to go to U.A.."

"Him, seriously?"

"Yeah." Honenuki nodded. "He's strong as hell. His quirk allows him to control wind."

_'If he had the highest score for those who got in through recommendations, then that means he's above Todoroki-san and Setsuna.'_ Midoriya thought with a bit of amazement. That would mean that this Yoarashi guy was pretty powerful. The boy took a moment to exam him for a bit and quickly noticed the odd look that he was giving to Todoroki.

"Oh god…" Tokage and Tetsutetsu said simultaneously. Both teens sharing an expression of absolute dread on their faces.

"What wron-"

"Yo! Tokage, Tetsutetsu, long time no see, huh? I haven't seen you guys in a hot minute. What's poppin' dudes?" The blonde haired girl in the leather bodysuit waved to them and smiled.

"Do you guys know her?" Yanagi inquired.

"Unfortunately…" The silver haired teen moaned.

"Camie Utsushimi." Tokage began to explain. "We went to middle school with her. She's your typical annoying free spirit who _doesn't_ know when to stop talking."

"I honestly hoped I wouldn't have to see her ever again."

Obviously there was history there between the three of them. One that certainly piqued the interests of all their friends. But before any of the other 1-B students could ask them to elaborate, Nezu popped up from out of nowhere.

"Greetings students, thank you so much for participating in today's special class! As you all know, we don't get many chances to train with our counterparts from other hero schools. So I hope that you all will take this opportunity to learn from each other and build strong bonds for the future!" The unidentified mammal said gleefully.

"Thank you again for inviting us, Nezu-san." The stressed out looking Shiketsu teacher bowed politely.

"So what exactly are we going to be doing today, sir?" Yaoyorozu then asked.

Instead of Nezu, Midnight was the one to bring the students up to speed on what the faculty had in store for them.

"Today you all will be participating in various team battle events." The "R-Rated" heroine said. "You'll be divided up into groups of four that are a mixture of students from all the classes. And each round will feature two of these teams facing off against one another."

"Pretty cut and dry, huh?" Said Tsuburaba.

"Additionally, each round will have a different task that both teams will need to accomplish. And they will all be taking place in different training areas. This will be done to keep all of you guessing. In the real world, you'll be given jobs and missions with little to no information beforehand. So make sure to stay on your toes."

"We'll also be throwing some surprises at you during each exercise. So keep that in mind." Kan followed up.

"So do we get to choose our own teams, gero?" Asui asked.

"No, your teams and matchups have already been decided."

"What are they?" Shishida inquired.

Midnight grabbed the remote control from atop the desk and pulled up a holoprojector behind her. Everyone's eyes immediately scanned over the screen to see who they were going to be partnered up with.

Team 1: Rin, Uraraka, Bondo, Nakamura

Team 2: Hagakure, Tsuburaba, Kodai, Kusakabe.

Team 3: Tokage, Yanagi, Kamakiri, Nagamasa.

Team 4: Honenuki, Monoma, Asui, Yoarashi.

Team 5: Mineta, Awase, Hibana, Shinmon.

Team 6: Shiozaki, Shishida, Yaoyorozu, Shishikura.

Team 7: Shoji, Kendou, Shoda, Utsushimi.

Team 8: Jiro, Tsunotori, Kaibara, Hinawa.

Team 9: Midoriya, Tokoyami, Kuroiro, Tetsutetsu.

Team 10: Kaminari, Komori, Fukidashi, Kotatsu.

"The teams were selected based on various factors, so don't pay too much attention to the fact that it's not an even split amongst the classes."

There were a mixture of cheers and subtle groans from the students once everyone finished reading the list.

'_This is a pretty solid group.' _Tokage thought to herself. She worked pretty well with Yanagi, and this wouldn't be their first time partnering up together. And Kamakiri was more than capable enough of holding his own in a fight. The only unknown was this Nagamasa person, whom she quickly learned was the fur covered guy from Shiketsu.

On Midoriya's end, the boy was having similar thoughts. Luckily, he was teamed up with people that he already knew. Kuroiro and Tokoyami were practically a match made in heaven. And Tetsutetsu was a straight tank. His analytical mind was already coming up with possible combinations that they could use to help them win.

However, while reading over the other teams the green haired boy was a bit perplexed. The teachers said that they organized the teams themselves, but he was having a hard time figuring out the methodology behind their selections. Obviously they took individual strength into account, that much was clear. But what else was there?

"One more thing! Please allow me to introduce our special guests!" Nezu then motioned over to the main door.

As if on cue, in walked All Might sporting a tacky looking yellow suit. But he was not alone. The blonde haired man was accompanied by a woman with blue hair and matching skin. Along with a lanky man with green hair and glasses who was in a wheelchair and missing a leg.

Midoriya immediately recognized this person as the notorious Sir Nighteye. The former sidekick of the now retired '_Symbol of Peace'_. He didn't know much about the guy aside from his quirk. An awesome power that allowed him to see into the future. And if he remembered correctly, the woman was known as Bubble Girl.

It had been months since any of the first years had seen their heroics teacher. To their knowledge, the man was working with the third year students to help them prepare for the licensing exam at the start of the next semester. At least that's what Hadou told them a few weeks ago. So it was surprising to see him here of all places.

Midoriya still harbored some negative feelings towards All Might. And he'd be lying if he said that he was comfortable being in the same room as him. But the boy shoved those feelings down for the time being. Right now, he had to focus on the task at hand.

"You okay?" Tokage nudged the boy's arm. Besides Yanagi, she was the only person aware of the less than stellar history between the two.

"I'm fine." He reassured her.

"Sir Nighteye and Bubble girl have dropped by to observe and offer some of their guidance to you all. Please be sure to make them feel welcomed." The white furred mammal of questionable origins continued.

"Yes sir!" The students echoed.

"We're on a bit of a time crunch, so let's get started." Midnight announced. "The first group up will be teams nine and four."

"Hell yeah!" Tetsutetsu threw his arm over Midoriya's shoulder. "Let's go show everyone what we're made of, dude."

"Yeah."

"Our team is well balanced. I'm certain that victory is within our grasp."

"Agreed." Kuroiro responded to Tokoyami's words.

"I've been waiting to go up against Izuku-kun all year. I guess now's my chance." Honenuki laughed.

"You may be the class "Ace", but don't think you'll be able to beat us so easily, Midoriya-kun." Monoma said to the green haired boy.

"I look forward to a passionate display! Let's make this one for history books!" Yoarashi shouted with a slight gleam in his eye.

"Oh man, this is gonna be one hell of a match up! Did anybody bring popcorn?" Tokage chuckled.

Without any further delays, the two teams made the short journey over to Training Ground Beta. Needless to say, this was a fight that everyone was looking forward to.

* * *

It only took a few minutes for the teams to get the rundown on what their objectives were. Essentially, this round was more of a "hostage escort" exercise.

Each team would start out at opposite ends of the training area and was given one humanoid training droid. Their mission was to do whatever they could to protect that droid while also finding a way to completely destroy the other's. All within a forty-five minute time limit. Even though the conditions were pretty cut and dry, it was obvious to everyone that this wasn't going to be a walk in the park. And considering the fact that they barely had any time to prepare, they were pretty going to have to wing it with as little intel as possible.

-(o)-

_~Team 4~_

"So…what's the plan, gero?" Asui asked her group.

"Yoarashi-san, you're quirk allows you to manipulate wind, right?"

"That's right!" The tall teen said enthusiastically.

"Then you'll be our main defense against Midoriya-kun. I predict that their team will be using him to defend their droid. But just in case they surprise us, I want you to try and hold him off as much as you can. He has the ability to control your body, would that be a problem?" The _'copy'_ quirk user said to him.

"Not at all. I'm looking forward to it!" In truth, the _'whirlwind'_ quirk user was practically jumping for joy at this. As soon as the matchup was announced, he was extra motivated to test his mettle against who he heard was U.A.'s top first year student. This was the same guy who was interning under Blizzard after all.

"Me and Asui-san-"

"Call me Tsu."

"Sorry…_Tsu_-chan and I can handle Tetsutetsu-kun and Kuroiro-kun on our own." Honenuki stated confidently. "But Tokoyami-kun's going to be a bit of an issue since he can fly now."

"That's fine, but I'd prefer it if Tsu-chan stayed close to me. I'm not too worried about Kuroiro-kun, and Tokoyami-san will more than likely backup Midoriya since he's good at offense and defense."

"What about _our_ droid, gero?" The frog themed teen then pointed towards the metallic green automaton.

"You guys can leave that to me. After all, I got a new _trick_ up my sleeve that I've been saving up until now." Monoma smiled before pulling up his left sleeve to reveal four specially crafted woven bracelets. Pointing to a particular one that appeared to be made up of black fibers.

-(o)-

_~Team 9~_

"So...any ideas on how we're going to do this?" Tetsutetsu looked to his teammates.

"Midoriya-kun, do you have any suggestions?" Tokoyami looked to the green haired boy.

"Yeah." Midoriya nodded. "Knowing Monoma-san and Juzo-san, they'll be expecting _me_ to be the one guarding the droid. Normally, I'd suggest that we leave defending it to me. But I think that throwing them off would be our best option."

"How so?"

"I'll be the one leading the attack with Tetsutetsu-san and Kuroiro-san. Tokoyami-san will be in charge of defending the droid. It'll pretty much be a distraction. But they won't be expecting us to split up so early."

"Seriously?" The silver haired teen raised an eyebrow at that.

Usually, Midoriya was more of a defensive fighter. He almost never went straight into a fight unless it was necessary. But ever since the whole Derelicta incident, the telekinetic boy had become more daring during training.

"I'll explain things further while we still have some time. But I do plan on surprising them a bit."

"Whatever you think is best, we'll follow your lead." Tokoyami then said.

"Agreed." Kuroiro echoed.

"Awesome…" Midoriya nodded. "Okay, here's what I have planned."

* * *

"Well…I see we decided to skip right to the main event." Kan said to Midnight in a joking tone.

"It's what the principal wanted, and I'd be lying if I didn't feel the same way. I for one am looking forward to this." The "R-Rated" heroine smiled.

While the faculty members were having a few hushed conversations amongst themselves, the students were a bit more vocal about their opinions.

"I guess now's as good a time as any to start placing bets, huh?" Kaminari chuckled.

"How do you think this one's going to play out?" Said Hagakure.

"I'd say that Midoriya-kun's team is the most likely to win." Shoda voiced his thoughts. "If his team were smart, he'd be the one protecting the droid while everyone else just played defense."

"I myself am inclined to agree, Shoda-san. However, we must take into account that they're also being graded on overall losses. I doubt that either team would be willing to sacrifice any of their members." Shishida adjusted his glasses.

"Shishida's right. But let's not forget that Monoma and Juzo are a major problem, especially since they're on the same team."

"Why do you say that?"

Surprisingly, Tokage was the one to answer. "It's because Monoma's a total wildcard. We don't know what tricks he has up his sleeve."

"I encourage you all to take Inasa-kun into account." Shishikura then spoke up. "I've seen footage of this Izuku Midoriya's exploits. I have no doubt that he'd be able to match this telekinesis with equal force."

"Totally! Inasa's quirk is hella fire!" Utsushimi backed up her classmate. Much to the green haired girl's chagrin.

"Well I think Izuku and Tetsutetsu's team have victory within bag!" Tsunotori cheered.

As the conversations continued, in the back there was one student whose blood was beginning to boil. Katsuki Bakugou couldn't believe that he had to sit through this bullshit. Not only was he forced to watch from the sidelines as all these extras battled it out against one another. But what made matters worse is that all anyone could talk about was fucking Deku of all people. It annoyed the _'explosion'_ quirk user how they could so easily praise a dirty traitor like him. He was nothing but a damn villain posing as a hero.

"I'm surprised though." Ashido then said. "I thought you'd be the main one cheering on Midoriya, Tokage. The guy's your boyfriend, isn't he?"

"Oh don't get it twisted, I'm certain that he's going to win. But I like to be realistic." The girl smiled.

"Hold up, that guy's your boyfriend?" Utsushimi suddenly popped up and wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulder. "That's lit, fam! You two make a hella cute couple. Who knew you'd snagged yourself such a cutie?"

_'God dammit…could this girl be any more annoying?'_

* * *

"**Begin!" **The voice of Midnight echoed throughout Training Ground Beta.

The moment the word left her mouth, all of the spectators turned their attention over to the numerous monitors along the wall. Things were rather silent for a few seconds until on the far end of the area, a masked figure dressed in all black suddenly shot into the sky and made a beeline right for the opposing gate.

"What the hell?" A few students said in unison.

"Midoriya-san's going on the offensive?" Yaoyorozu questioned. "Why isn't he guarding their droid?"

"Does he think that he can take on the entire team by himself?" One of the Shiketsu students wondered out loud.

"It looks like he wanted to get right to the good part."

* * *

'_All I have to do is scout out the area and see what the other team is doing. I have five minutes at the most before both our groups collide. Tokoyami-san should be in position before that happens.'_ The green haired boy thought while flying through the air.

Even though this plan of his may look a bit reckless on the surface, team nine was actually going with a more defensive strategy. All they had to do was buy enough time for Tokoyami to find a good hiding spot and stop the other team from advancing. Which was much easier said than done. Luckily, both starting gates were directly across from one another. So his opponents wouldn't be able to get too far in such a short amount of time.

That being said, the main thing that he had to look out for was Yoarashi. He had no clue what the Shiketsu student was actually capable of aside from the fact that his quirk let him control wind. So this was also his opportunity to assess his abilities.

By the time Midoriya made it about halfway across the training area, he spotted a lone figure shoot up into the sky surrounded by what looked to be a powerful surge of wind.

"We weren't expecting you to just come right to us. But if you're looking for a fight, I'll happily oblige!" The '_whirlwind'_ quirk user shouted at the top of his lungs before flying right towards him.

'_Did he just abandon his team? No, he doesn't strike me as the type to act recklessly. They must be using him to keep me occupied.'_

The '_telekinesis'_ user didn't get a chance to think about it any further before a massive gust of wind was sent directly at him. The attack was surprisingly faster than he expected and Midoriya had to make a hard left turn to avoid getting swept up by it.

'_And his range is nothing to laugh at.'_

Midoriya decided to momentarily increase his speed and close the distance between the two of them. But as soon as he came within a hundred meters or so of the boy, Yoarashi flew in the opposite direction.

"Y'know...I don't get the chance to go up against other people who can fly at my school! I've been looking forward to good dogfight for ages!" He shouted once again while performing a sweeping motion with his right arm that sent another slash of wind at Midoriya.

Now that he was here, there were a few things that Midoriya noticed about the way Yoarashi was using his quirk. First and foremost, it looked like he needed to move his body in order to dish out those wind slashes. Second, the cyclone under his feet looked to be the method by which he was propelling himself in the air.

'_Let's see if he can still use his powers without moving.' _

Midoriya instantly activated his quirk on Yoarashi's body and froze the boy in place. The momentary shock was enough to break his control over his quirk and the cyclone under his feet quickly dissipated. Seeing this his best opportunity yet, Midoriya charged right at his opponent and readied himself to deliver a punch. But as soon as he came within fifty or so meters of Yoarashi, he was blown by yet another powerful gust of wind.

"So...you don't need to move your body to use your quirk after all?"

"You're pretty smart, huh? That's right! I don't need to move my body to use my '_whirlwind'_." The black haired boy replied enthusiastically before charging up another attack. "**Nightstorm!"**

A horizontal cyclone suddenly formed right in front of the boy and launched itself right at Midoriya. But the green haired teen was prepared for it this time.

"**Vortex!"**

Just as the wind reached his position, it quickly whipped around his body and dissipated behind him. This was enough to earn a shocked expression from the Shiketsu student.

"You actually managed to block my ultimate move?! You're the first person to ever do that! Alright, then how about this? **Crescent Moon Dance!**." About ten half-moon shaped blades of wind came flying at Midoriya at incredible speed. Thankfully, the green haired boy was able to react fast enough and ascend further into the air before they could hit.

It was now clear to the boy why Inasa Yoarashi earned the top spot at the recommendations exams. Not only was his quirk powerful, but he had amazing control over it as well. He was planning on linking up with Tetsutetsu once he got a good look at what the other team was doing. But it looked like he wasn't going to be able to shake this guy off any time soon.

'_Our quirks pretty much cancel each other out.'_ The boy then thought. '_I'm going to need some type of weapon if I want to end this quickly.'_

It took all of two seconds for a new plan to form inside Midoriya's mind and the boy suddenly turned his back to his opponent before flying away and going around a nearby building. And much like he expected, Yoarashi decided to follow him.

The chase went on for about thirty seconds by the time Midoriya was finally able to shake off his opponent for a brief moment. While also finding a suitable location for what he wanted to do. They were now pretty far away from his team's gate, so he wouldn't have to worry too much about collateral damage if things went south. The green haired boy then descended to the ground and found himself in the middle of a decent sized simulated park surrounded by trees.

"I still can't do this at Tatsumaki's level yet. But I need an advantage right now." Midoriya then said to himself. He looked over to the nearest tree and used his quirk to uproot it from the ground and bring it right in front of him. "Alright, let's give this one a try."

Everyone in the viewing area watched as the tree was ripped apart by the force of the boy's quirk and separated into four individual pieces. With the first step now complete, Midoriya made a mental image of what he wanted in his head and started reshaping the wood. Applying pressure on all sides. It only took about five seconds or so before the now broken tree was transformed into four wooden spears.

"**Javelin!"** The boy shouted once he was finally done. In truth, this was nothing more than a modified version of Tatsumaki's "_Gungnir"_ move. But whereas she could make up the twenty of these like it was nothing, he was limited to only four or five at the most.

As if on cue, Yoarashi came flying around the nearest building and Midoriya wasted no time in going on the offensive.

* * *

"Huh...Izuku-kun's move kinda reminds of yours, Reiko-chan." Kendou said to the '_poltergeist'_ user.

"It's essentially the same method that I use to fight." Yanagi replied stoically. "But right now he can only control four of his javelins. Manipulating multiple objects is still Izuku-kun's Achilles heel."

"I think it looks more like Pony when she's using her horns, shroom." Komori added.

"Still though, I'm surprised that Midoriya-kun chose a head on attack like that. That's not like him."

"I don't think that was his plan." Kan then interjected.

"Huh?"

"More than likely, Midoriya was just scouting out the other team. But that Shiketsu boy was more than willing to engage him in a fight."

"That makes sense." A few of the 1-B students nodded.

* * *

While Midoriya was busy duking it out with Yoarashi, Tetsutetsu was quickly moving towards his location. The '_steel'_ quirk user spotted the two zooming through the air right above him not too long ago, so he was planning to go and backup his teammate. By his best estimate, he was only a few blocks away from their current position.

However, just as the silver haired teen was about to turn the next corner he was suddenly blindsided by a powerful force striking him in the back. One strong enough to knock him off his feet.

"What the hell?" Tetsutetsu looked up just in time to see a long, pink appendage wrap around his torso. "Asui!"

"Call me Tsu!" The frog themed teen said bluntly just before throwing him into a nearby wall. Thankfully, the boy was able to activate his quirk just in time to avoid taking any extra damage.

"I never expected you to come attack me on your own."

"That wasn't the original plan, gero. But thanks to Midoriya-san, we had to improvise."

"Doesn't matter to me, I'm just happy that I get a chance to throw down!" Tetsutetsu grinned before changing the property of his quirk. The '_steel'_ quirk user's body then transformed from its usual steel to a more sleek looking titanium.

'_I may have to sacrifice a bit of strength, but I can move around a lot easier like this.'_ The boy thought to himself before charging right at her.

* * *

Back with Midoriya and Yoarashi, things were already heating up. Thanks to his javelins, the green haired boy had the advantage in firepower. But the '_whirlwind'_ user was dodging the attacks easily enough.

'_I'm gonna be in trouble if he makes more of these spear things. I was trying to conserve energy, but I guess I'll have to turn things up a bit.'_ The Shiketsu student thought.

Immediately after dodging another javelin, Yoarashi performed a corkscrew maneuver and reoriented himself to face Midoriya. That brief respite was more than enough time for him to summon a large cyclone right underneath his feet. The powerful winds instantly surrounded Midoriya on all sides and the boy had to break his hold on his javelins and counter this attack.

"**Hellstorm!"** With that, the cyclone dissipated after the '_telekinesis'_ user applied his move with an opposite rotation to cancel out the attack.

"Man, you're one tough guy to bring down!"

Instead of responding, Midoriya once again regained control of his javelins and threw them at his opponent. But right before they could get close, several hexagonal shaped objects collided with them in mid-air.

"What the-"

"I was hoping that you would be guarding your droid, Midoriya-kun. But since you're here, I can only assume that Tokoyami-kun is the one taking care of that. Am I wrong?" The voice of Neito Monoma said confidently.

'_Damn, I probably should've stayed out of sight. But this fight could go either way and Yoarashi-san's going to need the extra support. I'll just have to make sure that Midoriya-kun keeps his focus on him.'_

The '_copy'_ quirk user was standing on the opposite end of the road with their team's droid right behind him. But that wasn't the only thing that threw the boy off. The droid was surrounded by a protective ball of solid air that was no doubt thanks to Tsuburaba's quirk. But what really surprised the green haired boy was the fact that Monoma's arms were lined with two stone-like shields on either side.

'_Is that…'_

* * *

"Okay, timeout!" Awase said what everyone else seemed to be thinking. "Am I tripping, or is Monoma using Crust's quirk?"

"When the hell did that happen?"

"Would someone care to give us an explanation?" Yaoyorozu asked the 1-B students.

Naturally, Tsuburaba was the one to clarify what was going on. "Monoma found a way to upgrade his quirk not too long ago." He pointed back at the screen where sure enough, Monoma had sprouted another shield right in front of him. "Those bracelets that he's wearing are made with strands of people's hair."

Everyone turned their attention back at the monitor to verify this information. And they could clearly see four braided bands around both of his wrists. Everyone knew that all Monoma needed was to touch someone to be able to use their quirk. But they didn't know his ability was so potent that all he needed was a few strands of hair. However, something wasn't right. Two of those bracelets were accounted for, Tsuburaba's and Crust's. Which means that he had two more quirks that he hadn't used yet.

"When did he manage to get Crust's quirk?" Midnight whispered to Kan.

"He's actually had it ever since the work study. But he chose not to use it up until now." The blood themed her clarified.

In the back of the group, a certain glasses wearing man scrunched his face a bit at what he was witnessing. "That blonde boy reminds me a bit of _you know who._ Please tell me that there's a limit to that quirk of his."

"I believe that four is his maximum." Yagi replied to Nighteye. "Any more than that and he can't handle the stress on his body."

"What a relief…."

* * *

Back with the trio of students at the simulated park, Midoriya now found himself in both a negative situation and a golden opportunity. Although their team's droid was right there in front of him, he had two strong opponents that would get in his way of destroying it.

In his mind, he had two options. Try to take out one of them first and deal with the other later. Or retreat and regroup with Tetsutetsu. Under normal circumstances, the boy would've gone with option two. But something inside his mind was screaming at him to not back away from a challenge like this. '_It looks like I'm starting to become more like Tatsumaki every day.'_

"Tetsutetsu-san, where are you?" Midoriya raised his hand up to his earpiece.

"_I'm dealing with Asui right now. I kinda got my hands tied!"_ The silver haired teen shouted.

"Tokoyami-san, what about you?"

"_I'm in position and the droid is under my protection. I have yet to come across any opponents."_

'_That means that Juzo-san is still unaccounted for._' The boy surmised. Of all people who didn't want running around too freely, the '_softening'_ quirk user was near the top of the list. '_It won't be long before he finds Tokoyami-san. So I'll have to deal with these two right here.'_

With his mind now resolved, Midoriya sprung into action. The boy launched himself in the air and went straight for Monoma. Something that definitely took everyone by surprise.

"Quite a bold strategy, Midoriya-kun!" The '_copy'_ quirk user taunted as he summoned one of Kamakiri's blades from his arm. But what the blonde haired boy wasn't expecting was for Midoriya to zoom right past him instead of trying to attack. "What the-"

"Here you go!" Was all that Midoriya said as he suddenly removed his jacket and threw it in Monoma's direction. For a distraction, this was pretty lame. However, no one was expecting what happened next.

As Monoma attempted to catch the jacket and throw it off to the side, a dark figure erupted from the piece of clothing and punched him right in the face.

"I was getting bored resting inside of Midoriya-kun's jacket. But now it appears as though it's time for my appearance." Said Shihai Kuroiro in a confident tone.

"Kuroiro-san, take care of him while I deal with Yoarashi!" Midoriya instructed him before turning his attention to his other opponent.

"Understood."

* * *

"Wait...so Kuroiro was hiding in Midoriya's clothes this whole time?" Said an astonished Kaibara.

"I forgot that he was even in this fight." Jiro added.

"Damn Izuku, that was pretty smart." Tokage smirked, more than impressed by her boyfriend's antics.

"Whoa! That boytoy of yours is pretty damn clever, huh?" Utsushimi chuckled. The girl still far too close in proximity to Tokage for her liking.

"I'll admit that even I wasn't expecting that." Sniped laughed along with Thirteen and Present Mic.

"A fine strategy indeed." Nezu smiled deviously.

* * *

At the far end of the training ground near team nine's gate, Tokoyami was quietly standing guard over their team's droid atop one of the buildings. The raven headed teen knew that he wouldn't be seeing much action due to the defensive nature of his objective. But he was starting to get a bit worried due to the lack of communication between his teammates.

All he knew at the moment was that Midoriya and Tetsutetsu were engaged in battle. Yet that was pretty much the extent of his knowledge. Tokoyami wasn't one to jump into a fight if it wasn't necessary. And his team was more than capable of handling things on their own. So for now, he simply chose to continue doing what he could to watch over their droid.

However, the '_dark shadow'_ user's peaceful silence was broken when he heard some rustling behind him. The boy looked behind him only to see none other than Honenuki raising his body from underneath the ground below his feet.

"Man...it took forever to find you, Tokoyami-kun." The lipless stated.

"Honenuki-kun?"

"When we saw that Izuku-kun wasn't protecting your droid I knew that you were the next logical person who would be charged with that job."

"I see, the brilliance of recommended students never ceases to amaze me. I forgot that stealth is but only one of your strongest assets." Tokoyami responded.

"Let's skip the witty banter and get right down to business. I'd prefer not to drag this out if I can help it." Was all that '_softening'_ quirk user said before slamming his palms down on the ground and melting the entire top of the building. Forcing his opponent to activate his quirk and secure the droid before leaping into the air.

'_This situation isn't something that I can't handle. I may have the air advantage, but I need to get as far away as possible.'_

* * *

"I was hoping to avoid a head-on fight, but I guess I have no choice!"

"The other's told me that close combat isn't your strong suit. But I'll happily accept the challenge!" Yoarashi's grin was wide as he flew to meet Midoriya halfway.

Seconds before impact, Midoriya raised his fist and got into a classic boxer's stance. Like his opponent had mentioned, he much preferred to do things at a distance. But now was not the time to try and keep things in his comfort zone. '_I still don't have this down yet. But with Monoma-san distracted, it should be enough to handle this.'_

"**Heavy Infight!"** The '_telekinesis'_ user shouted before throwing a punch. One that was a lot faster than what the '_whirlwind'_ user was expecting.

'_What the hell? He's quicker than I thought.'_

To put things in simple terms, "_Heavy Infight"_ was a technique by which Midoriya used his powers to increase his speed and strength to a certain degree. It worked based on the same principle by which he used his quirk to fly. But if he focused properly, it gave his physical abilities a decent boost.

Chaos quickly ensued as the entire battlefield was now an all out brawl. Kuroiro was giving Monoma more than a bit of trouble by jumping in and out of his clothes. But due to his preparations, their droid was still well protected. Tetsutetsu and Asui had been going at it ever since they first encountered one another, with no clear winner in sight. And Tokoyami was now on the run from Honenuki. Who was melting more and more of the area as things dragged on.

* * *

"Geez, this is getting intense." Said Satou, who like many others had his eyes glued to the screen.

"At this point, I don't even know how this is going to go." Nagamasa commented.

Over by where the teachers were all huddled together, Kan looked to Nezu. "Is it time, sir?"

"Yes." The unidentified mammal of questionable origins grinned. "Let's begin with the second stage of this battle."

All Kan did was nod before grabbing a nearby earpiece and speaking to an unknown person on the other end of the line. "You're good to go whenever you're ready. Proceed as you wish, just try not to make too big of a mess."

"_Yes, sensei!"_ A male voice said with some enthusiasm in his voice.

* * *

"I never expected you to be a brawler, Midoriya! Usually guys with ranged quirks don't do well in a fist fight!"

"I'm not just some one trick pony." Midoriya responded to Yoarashi's word with yet another kick that his opponent was barely able to block.

The two airborne students were now moving all over the place. And neither one had been able to land a decisive blow on the other. As much as Midoriya hated to admit it, he may have had the upper hand when it came to maneuverability. But Yoarashi was quicker on his feet than he expected.

"**Push!"** The green haired boy used his quirk to create a bit of distance between the two of them. With his opponent stunned, he regained control over his javelins and sent them flying at the boy's body. But Yoarashi recovered just in time to produce a gust of wind that knocked them off course.

"Now this is more like it! Let's turn up the intensity a bit, huh? **Crescent Moon Dance: Barrage!**"

After performing a series of slashing movements in quick succession with both arms, the '_whirlwind'_ user created a ridiculous amount of wind slashes that were on a direct collision course for Midoriya. And to add further insult to impending injury, the area of the attack was just too wide for him to escape from. However, Midoriya wasn't going to be taken down so easily.

"**Dance of the Mountain Wind!"**

Most of the spectators in the viewing area were stunned by how gracefully the green haired boy suddenly moved while somehow managing to avoid getting hit. And with the way that his body moved, it was almost as if he was just riding the wind currents of the attack itself.

While that was going on, down below Kuroiro had managed to get the upper hand and Monoma. The '_black'_ quirk user was keeping the blonde haired teen immobile by using his clothes as a makeshift straightjacket.

"Surrender now, Monoma-kun. You won't be able to move like this."

"Do you really think I'm going to give up that easily?" The '_copy'_ quirk user replied before finally revealing what the fourth bracelet on his wrist was.

The blonde haired boy's entire torso suddenly began wildly spinning around in a clockwise motion. Letting everyone know that he was also in possession of Kaibara's quirk as well. The speed of the rotation was so fast that Kuroiro instantly began to feel nauseous. But he wasn't planning on letting go any time soon.

The battle was getting more intense with each passing second, and there was no end in sight. At least not one that anyone could properly predict. However, things changed when the sound of a massive explosion barely a few blocks away caught their attention. One that was far too big for any of the others to cause on their own.

***Boom!***

"What the hell was that?" The four students said in unison as they all paused.

"**Attention students!"** The voice of Midnight suddenly said through the speaker system. "**The objective of your exercise has now changed. A new opponent has appeared in the area. Your mission now is to defeat him while continuing to protect your droids. Use whatever means necessary at your disposal to do so. Good luck...you're going to need it!"**

"What's going on, here?" Yoarashi was the first to speak.

"No idea." Midoriya replied.

"Did Midnight-sensei just tell us to join forces?" Monoma asked.

"S-something's...ugh...weird about this." A very dizzy Kuroiro added as he fell out from Monoma's jacket.

Before either of the boy's could further piece together this dramatic turn of events, Tetsutetsu's frantic voice screamed into Midoriya and Kuroiro's earpieces.

"_You guys! We got a big problem over her-"_

"Tetsutetsu-san! What's going on?!" Midoriya said back to the silver haired teen, only to get no response.

"Tsu-chan, what's going on over there?!" Monoma radioed to his teammate, but was also met with silence.

All of a sudden, a massive surge of wind came barreling down the street at the four of them. One that was powerful enough to completely destroy the nearby building. Neither student had a chance to react before they were all swept up and thrown across the road. Luckily they all managed to recover rather quickly and get their bearings in order. But they were certainly not prepared for what happened next. Which was Tetsutetsu's body flying through the newly created dust cloud like a ragdoll before landing in the middle of the road.

"Tetsutetsu!"

"What's going on?!"

"Well, well...it sure seemed like you first years were having quite a bit of fun, huh?" An unfamiliar yet menacing voice said.

In that moment, Midoriya, Yoarashi, Kuroiro and Monoma felt a collective chill go down their spines. They were all curious as to who the hell just showed up in the middle of their match. But it didn't take long for them to get their answer.

"Do you guys mind if I join in?" The dust settled just enough for them to get a glimpse at whoever this new foe was. But as soon as the recognition settled in, all of the first year students could do was swallow a collective gulp.

Standing there in the middle of the newly destroyed building with an unconscious Asui draped over his shoulder was a tall, muscular boy with blonde hair dressed in a blue and white outfit. Along with a majestically flowing red cape. He had an honest smile on his face, but the aura emanating from his body was enough to make the air around them go still.

There were only two people that the students knew of who could fit a description like that. One was currently in the monitoring area with the rest of the faculty wearing a tacky yellow suit. The second person was none other than the infamous…

"Mirio...Togata…"

* * *

"Wait...they have to go up against Goldenboy?!" Tokage looked to her aunt for an explanation, who simply responded with a devious smirk.

"You can't be serious!" Tsunotori said.

"Seriously, that guy's a fucking monster!" Awase added on. "How the hell is that even fair? The guy's practically a smaller version of All Might."

By now the entire country had already seen the notorious battle between U.A.'s top student and the yakuza boss, Overhaul. And you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who disagreed with Awase's statement. Simply put, Mirio Togata was a force to be reckoned with. Based on what they had seen, the guy could give most pro heroes a run for their money. And to make this scenario even worse, he already took out two of their classmates without even breaking a sweat.

'_This is not going to end well.'_ Was the only thought running through Tokage's mind.

"So Sasaki-kun, is this arrangement to your liking?" Nezu said the wheelchair bound hero.

"Indeed it is." Nighteye nodded. "This will be a good test to see just how much of a threat that boy may pose in the future."

"Well hopefully we'll be able to put any lingering doubts that we have to rest. But I'd be lying if I said that I'm not looking forward to this encounter myself."

'_I'm sorry to have to put you through this, young Midoriya.'_ Yagi thought with a slightly worried expression. The only reason he allowed his successor to take part in this was to pacify Nighteye's concerns about the green haired boy potentially turning hostile again in the further. But even he was quite invested in seeing how this will play out.

* * *

Midoriya's mind was now running a mile a minute trying to figure out how they were going to come out of this situation victorious. But something told him that the chances of that happening were a lot lower than he would like to admit. Their best option was to secure Tetsutetsu and Asui and find a way for Monoma and Kuroiro to link up with the others. He doubted that he could hold Togata off by himself. The guy had the advantage in both speed and power. But with Yoarashi here, they had a decent shot.

"Guy's...on my signal, grab those two and meet up with Tokoyami-san and Juzo-san as fast as you can." The boy ordered. "Yoarashi-san and I will buy you some time."

"Do you really think it will be that easy?" Monoma said with an uncharacteristic tone of trepidation in his voice.

"No…"

"We don't really have a lot of options, do we? I remember seeing this guy fight on T.V. a while back." Yoarashi then said.

Not looking to waste anymore time, Togata decided to go ahead and get the party started. After all, he had been looking forward to this all week.

"Well if you guys won't make the first move, then I'll happily oblige." The blonde haired third year smiled before rearing back his right arm. "I still haven't fully mastered this move yet, but I think you guys will be able to handle it…. **Twenty-Five Percent: Texas Smash!**"

'_Oh shit…'_

* * *

**A/N: Whoa, long time no see, huh? Sorry about the extremely late update for those who have been following the story. I've been pretty busy over the last month. I'm moving/changing jobs in a few months so I've been dealing with that. Plus...I've been binge reading Tower of God for the last two weeks, so that's had most of my attention. Also, I just needed to take a break from writing. **

**1\. We finally get to see Mirio Togata in action. Anyone care to predict how that's going to play out? He may be the current wielder of OfA in this fic, but I've decided to make a few changes to how he'll use the quirk. It's not anything major, but I think you guys will enjoy it. Next chapter will essentially be Mirio vs Everybody. **

**2\. Since my schedule is still king of crazy, I won't even give you guys a timeline on when my next update will be. But I doubt that it will take another month. I really only have time to write on the weekends these days. **

**3\. The polls are still up on what my next fic will be. I haven't even bothered to check them yet, so I'm curious to see what the trend is. Like I said, I won't make a decision on that until the last few chapters of this fic. So feel free to cast your votes.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a comment/review!**


	53. Joint Training Arc: Part 2

"**Twenty-Five Percent: Texas Smash!"**

Barely a split-second before Togata unleashed a devastating right punch that destroyed even more of the surrounding area, Midoriya and Yoarashi were quick to make their moves.

"**Dance of the Mountain Wind!"**

"**Zephyr's Glide!"**

Somehow, both first year hero course students not only managed to dodge the blonde haired boy's attack. But they were able to get their teammates out of the way as well. Midoriya used his telekinesis to secure Tetsutetsu's unconscious body from the pavement. While Yoarashi's winds quickly moved Monoma and Kuroiro to a safe distance.

'_They still had the wherewithal to get the less mobile ones out of harm's way. Not bad.'_ Togata smiled outwardly. He wasn't really surprised considering the greenette seemed to be that kind of guy based on what Hadou had told him. But it was still a bit refreshing to see the Shiketsu kid also taking the appropriate actions.

"Not bad, first years! Most people instinctively abandon their teammates in a situation like that." The blonde haired boy said with another grin. "In fact, I'm so impressed that I'll give you guys a ten minute head start!"

"What?!" The four boy's questioned.

"What are you talking about?!" Monoma shouted.

"I'm serious." Togata responded. "I'll give you guys ten full minutes to catch up with your other teammates and regroup. That should be plenty of time to come up with a strategy. Oh, and you can have _her_ back to." He then tossed the unconscious Asui over to Midoriya. The green haired boy being more than capable of gently taking control of her body with his quirk.

"Do you really think that we're going to fall for that?" Kuroiro was the next to speak.

"Yeah, for all we know you could just attack as soon as we turn our backs!" Yoarashi continued.

"You have my guarantee that I will not attack you. To be honest, if I wanted to...I would've already done so."

Although Midoriya wanted to call bullshit on all of this, there was some truth to Togata's words. Based on what he's seen, the guy's speed rivals that of Ingenium. If the top student at U.A. was being serious, he would've already knocked them out cold instead of standing around and talking to them like this. So as much as he didn't want to admit it, it wasn't wise to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"You guys, let's hurry and meet up with the others. We don't have a lot of time." Midoriya ordered rather than suggested.

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah." The boy nodded. "We're at a disadvantage right now and it would be best for us to use every chance that we can get. Besides, I'm worried about Juzo-san and Tokoyami-san."

Monoma, Kuroiro and Yoarashi all shared a brief look with one another before nodding and agreeing to the plan. Without a word, all six students were lifted into the air and made a beeline right to where their other two teammates were supposed to be. And while they made their tactical retreat, Togata simply dropped down to the ground and began stretching.

'_Nezu-san and Toshinori said that I'm supposed to take it easy on these guys. So this should be more than good enough. Besides, maybe I'll get a chance to actually cut loose for a bit.'_

* * *

"It looks like Togata is giving them some time to re-group." Snipe stated casually while twirling his empty pistol on his index finger.

"Either that or he's giving them a chance to all gather into one spot." Kendou remarked.

"Either way, it makes sense that they would take the chance. Fumi-kun and Juzo-kun probably don't even know what's going on yet. I know I'd hate to be the last to find out that a monster just showed up from out of nowhere." Said Yanagi.

'_Did she just call him Fumi-kun?'_ Tokage smirked while giving her pale friend the side-eye.

In the back of the group posted up against the wall, Bakugou couldn't help but feel a bit miffed at what he was watching. That damn nerd hadn't changed one bit. Even with a flashy quirk, his first instinct was to just run away with his tail in between his legs. He didn't know anything about the blue eyed weirdo aside from that one video he saw. Which really only told him that he had an above average strength enhancement quirk. But Katsuki Bakugou knew for damn sure that he would never run away from a fight.

"_Fucking cowards…"_ The '_explosion'_ quirk user growled under his breath.

"Did you say something, Bakugou?" Aizawa gave the boy a stern look.

"No, sensei."

"Hmm…." The black haired man simply nodded.

Ever since coming back from the training camp and starting the new semester, Bakugou was fully aware that he was on Aizawa's "shit-list". Which he thought was completely unreasonable. Apparently, there had been complaints about his behavior from the staff and other students through the school year. And the principal decided that action needed to be taken. On top of that, his failure at the provisional license exam didn't exactly help his case.

It was bad enough that he was forced to go anger management counseling once a week on top of the remedial classes for the license exam. But now he had to pretend like he was some stiff with a stick up his ass all damn day. He didn't really see the problem though. So what if all these extras thought he was a bit too rough around the edges? Their opinions didn't matter anyways. As long as he performed at a top level, there shouldn't be any issues. At least, that's what Bakugou kept telling himself.

* * *

_~A Couple of Minutes Later~_

"Mirio Togata...we have to defend our droids from _and_ try to beat Mirio Togata…" Honenuki's lipless face expressing a level of exasperation that Midoriya didn't even know was possible.

"Yeah…"

"This is quite troublesome." Tokoyami stated.

"How much time to do we have left before he comes after us?"

"About seven minutes."

"So...what's the plan?"

Unsurprisingly, Midoriya was the first one to speak up. "On the way here, I thought up a way that we might be able to bring Togata-senpai down. It'll be a massive risk for all of us. But I'm fairly certain that we can manage."

"I believe that we are on the same page then." Monoma interjected. "A coordinated attack with some of us acting as bait would be our best option."

"That's right. We only have a few minutes left before he comes after us. So let's try and come to a consensus quickly."

"Alright." The others nodded.

-(o)-

"Alright!" Togata cheered before standing up on his feet. "That's ten minutes. I hope these guys were able to come up with something good."

Without a second thought, the ninth weirder or '_One for All'_ activated roughly ten percent of his power and leapt high into the air before landing on top of a nearby building. The boy proceeded to dash from rooftop to rooftop in the direction that the other students retreated to. And in no time, he came across quite the peculiar sight.

Standing atop one of the nearby buildings was Honenuki and Monoma. Along with the two droids surrounded by a few of the '_copy'_ quirk user's shields. He couldn't see where any of their other teammates were, but he had a pretty good idea of what they were trying to pull.

'_Using the droids as bait while the others wait to attack while my guard is down, huh? Not a bad strategy since they don't know what all I can do yet. They made the right choice by keeping their main attackers hidden away. But this is a bit audacious.'_

Since he wasn't at all worried about what they were trying to pull, and he was still trying to go easy on them, Togata simply decided to play along. The boy charged right for Monoma at a fraction of his top speed before finally coming up on the building. Instead of knocking him out right then and there, he was going to intimidate him a little more.

However, the moment he stepped on the concrete, the '_One for All'_ user's feet immediately began sinking into the ground. Togata honestly didn't even have enough time to react before the ground instantly re-solidified. Firmly locking his ankles into place.

"So...you prepped this entire area except for the spots where you're standing. Not bad!"

"Thanks." Honenuki said sarcastically. "Granted, I wasn't expecting you to actually stop right in front of us. Why didn't you use one of those air blasts to blow us off the roof?"

"I'm trying to keep damage to a minimum. Cementoss-sensei hates it when I cause too much chaos."

"I think you're taking us a bit too lightly. Oh well, that just makes things even easier for us!" Monoma then said. "Midoriya-kun, Yoarashi-san, now!"

As soon as he gave the order, the two airborne students suddenly appeared from behind the nearby buildings and made their move. What surprised Togata was that the both of them were controlling multiple smaller versions of Monoma's shields. Without a moment of hesitation, both boys sent everything they had flying at him at full speed while the '_copy'_ quirk user dashed towards him with a dulled version of Kamakiri's blade sticking out of his forearm.

'_You may be strong. But even someone with an enhancement quirk isn't strong enough to take all of this at once.'_ Midoriya thought.

Time seemed to slow down as the shields and blade closed in on the blonde haired teen. If it had been anyone else, they might have started panicking. But unfortunately for all these hero course newbies, the next '_Symbol of Peace'_ had another trick up his sleeve.

What happened next truly stunned them. Instead of using his strength or one of those air bursts to break free, Togata stood his ground. And everyone watched as not only Monoma's blade, but all of the miniature shields quite literally passed through the third year student's body.

'_What?!'_

'_Huh?'_

'_How the hell?!'_

Obviously because he wasn't expecting this, Monoma's momentum and confusion forced him to stumble onto the ground right behind his opponent. Luckily, Midoriya and Yoarashi's aim was good enough to where he didn't have to worry about accidentally getting hit.

"Oh yeah, you guys didn't know I could do that, huh? I'm surprised Midoriya-kun, I would've thought that Nejire told you about my other quirk." Togata grinned.

"His..._other _quirk?"

* * *

"Okay, timeout!" Kirishima announced while throwing his hands up in a 'T' shape. "Am I going crazy, or did all those attacks just pass through Togata?"

Hoping to shed some light on the situation, Tsunotori was surprisingly the one to explain what was going on. "Mirio-senpai possesses double-quirk."

"Huh?"

"Yeah...he has super strength and can move through solid objects." The horned teen continued.

"Wait, so this guy's like Todoroki then?" Ashido asked.

"Who the hell is this guy, Obito Uchiha?" Kaibara remarked.

The situation seemed pretty lopsided before, now it was downright unfair. At least that's what Tokage thought. Not only was this guy crazy powerful, but physical attacks didn't work on him either. In her opinion, those two powers were practically the perfect combination. How someone was lucky enough to possess two quirks that complimented each other so well was nothing short of spectacular.

"I fear that our friends truly won't be able to come out of this scenario victorious." Shiozaki clasped her hands together and offered her classmates a silent prayer.

* * *

Back with the main group, all of the boys were trying to wrap their heads around what just happened. Mirio Togata had another quirk this entire time? One that apparently let solid objects phase right through him? How was that even possible? It wasn't unheard of for people to inherit more than one power from their parents. But this was just ridiculous. Even Honenuki was visibly stunned by what just happened.

"Dammit!" Monoma cursed. "You have two quirks?"

"Yeah, '_permeation'_ is my original power. And I manifested my '_strength augmentation'_ a little over a year and a half ago." The third year student explained.

"Juzo-kun, get the droids out of here!"

"God dammit!" The '_softening'_ quirk user clicked his teeth before turning ground around himself and the two droids into mud.

"Well, we can't have that now, can we?" Before anyone had a chance to blink, Togata dashed over to where the droids were and grabbed one right before it submerged. And in one swift motion, the boy completely obliterated it with a single punch. "Now you guys only have one droid left to defend. Good luck dude!"

Thankfully, Togata decided to simply let Honenuki retreat with the other droid instead of destroying the other one right then and there.

"**Mirio Togata has destroyed one of the droids. Only one is left remaining!"** Midnight's voice said over the loudspeakers.

'_I need to stop him from moving!'_ Midoriya told himself before using his telekinesis to freeze his opponent in place. Now that the boy was standing still, this was the perfect chance to try and take him down. "Monoma-san, Yoarashi-san, hit him!"

The '_copy'_ quirk user didn't need any further invitation before creating yet another one of Crust's projectile shields and launching it at their foe. While the Shiketsu student sent a large blast of wind his way. However, all of them were shocked when the muscular blonde simply jumped to avoid their attacks.

'_Wait a second...did he just…'_

"Hey, I guess my theory was right!" Togata looked up at Midoriya.

"What?!"

"My quirk let's all things pass through me. It even works at a molecular level. I'm assuming that your telekinesis works by emitting some kind of force or wave, right? Even if you do manage to get me, you can't completely immobilize me with your power!"

To be completely honest, Midoriya didn't really know what to say at that moment. This was the first time that someone had ever broken free from his quirk aside from Katsuragi. But if what this guy was saying was the truth, even his "_Palace of Inertia"_ would be useless against him. And if that was the case, then their best chance at winning just went down the drain.

"Monoma-san, get out of-"

"Too late."

***Bam!***

Before the '_copy'_ quirk user even knew what happened, Togata closed the distance between the two of them and delivered a devastating gut punch that knocked the boy out cold.

"**Neito Monoma has been incapacitated!"** Midnight said over the loudspeakers once again.

"Now then...before I go and hunt down those teammates of yours and destroy the last droid, how about we have some fun?" Was all that the current wielder of '_One for All'_ said before firing off yet another "_Texas Smash"_ in the direction of Midoriya and Yoarashi.

Both teens were immediately blown back by the sheer force of the wind pressure that was generated from the blast. Even Yoarashi had difficulties making a counter current to negate some of the force. However, that was when all hell broke loose.

Togata followed up by launching himself into the sky right towards Midoriya and gearing up to deliver a punch. The green haired teen was barely fast enough to react just in time to fly to the right and avoid getting hit. But the blonde haired teen quickly followed up by twisting his body around mid-air and unleashing another air blast that nailed Midoriya right in the back.

Even Yoarashi wasn't safe from the oncoming beatdown. After momentarily regaining his footing on a nearby rooftop, Togata once again launched himself into the sky and went straight towards the '_whirlwind'_ user. The Shiketsu student's attempted to slow him down by sending a few air slashes his way. But it proved useless seeing as they all passed through Togata without any issues. Just when the dual quirk user was about to punch him in the gut, Yoarashi put all the power that he could muster into his feet and flew straight up into the sky.

What followed was a veritable game of cat and mouse all over the area as the two teens tried their hardest to avoid the monster that was chasing after them. As much as Midoriya wanted to check up on his teammates to try and reorganize, it didn't look like he was going to get the chance.

* * *

"Well this isn't looking good at all." Shishida casually adjusted his glasses.

"Hey...why doesn't Izuku activate that "_Overdrive"_ thing that him and his sister can use?" Awase looked towards Tokage and Yanagi for an explanation.

'_His sister?'_ Pretty much all of the 1-A and Shiketsu students thought simultaneously.

'_What the hell is that extra talking about? Deku doesn't have a fucking sister.'_ Bakugou said to himself. As long as he's known that green haired nerd, he never once heard anything about him having any other family besides his father who's apparently in America. What exactly was that all about?

"Fubuki-san said that skill is only supposed to be used in life or death situations." Yanagi answered. "The backlash is pretty serious. And it'd be ridiculous to use it in the middle of a training exercise."

Tokage was quick to put in her two cents. "Yeah, it would definitely help them out right now. But it's not worth it."

"Either way, I much doubt that these guys would still to win." Said Tsunotori. As far as she knew, the horned girl was the only one present who was fully aware of what Togata could do.

* * *

_~Inside The Building~_

"Honenuki-san, what's going on?" Tokoyami asked the lipless teen. At the moment, the '_dark shadow' _user was on the bottom floor of the building watching over Tetsutetsu and Asui. He wanted to be out there helping out his teammates, but someone had to make sure that the other two were taken care of.

"Togata-senpai destroyed one of the droids, so I had to get out of there. Monoma-kun and the others let me escape."

"What happened besides that?"

"Well, we just lost our ace in the hole. Togata-senpai apparently has two quirks and I don't think that Izuku-kun's telekinesis would work on him."

"...you can't be serious…."

-(o)-

It had been a full five minutes since Togata began his initial charge at Midoriya and Yoarashi. And the two boys had long since realized that there was no way for them to come out of this victorious if they just kept running away. The problem was that their opponent was so damn fast that it was almost impossible to find an opening to attack him. Not to mention how everything they hit him with would just pass right through him.

The more time they spent like this, the sooner they were going to get burned out. And on top of that, neither of the two had any idea how much longer they were going to have to put up with this. The end of the exercise was a few minutes away and they were nowhere close to beating their opponent.

As hard as he tried, Midoriya couldn't really come up with a good strategy to take Togata down that didn't involve them causing a lot of unnecessary damage to the area. After all, they were going up against someone with two very strong quirks that complimented each other well. What made it even worse was the fact that they couldn't hit him, but he could hit them whenever-

'_Wait a second!'_ The lightbulb suddenly went off over the boy's head as he continued zooming through the air. '_Why the heck did it take me so long to figure it out?'_

"Yoarashi-san, get as high up in the air as you can!"

"Got it!" Yoarashi nodded before shooting straight up into the sky. He had no clue why his teammate told him to do it, but it was a lot better than being in range of their opponent's attacks any longer.

It took all of five seconds before the boy's finally stopped a good eight hundred meters into the air. As far as he could remember, this was the highest that Midoriya had ever flown before.

"Yoarashi-san, it looks like we don't have many other options left." Midoriya said to the '_whirlwind' _quirk user.

"I'd hate to say it, but you might be right." The boy replied.

"But I think I have an idea on how we can stop him."

"Well, I'm all ears."

"Based on what we just saw, I don't think that his quirk works both ways."

"What do you mean?"

"He may be able to phase through solid objects. But it's a double-edged sword. As long as he's intangible like that, I doubt that he's able to land an attack on us. Think about it, a quirk like that works on a molecular level. I'm pretty sure that's why my telekinesis was ineffective against him when he activated it. If '_psycho-waves'_ passed through him, then that also means that it has to work for basic things like light and oxygen." The boy explained.

It took Yoarashi a brief second to pick up on what the green haired boy was putting down. "I get it...there has to be a time limit on how long he can stay like that. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to breath."

This was exactly what Midoriya was thinking. It had to be true, otherwise Togata wouldn't even bother staying tangible if he didn't need to be. If they managed to catch the blonde haired third year off-guard then found a way to keep him in a negative position, they might have a chance at winning this.

"So do you have any ideas?"

"Only one right now." Midoriya stated. "We'll only have one shot. But with our quirks, I'm pretty sure that it could work as long as we get the timing right. And we might as well since we only have about ten minutes left in the exercise."

"Alright then, let's do it!"

-(o)-

Down below, Togata was taking a little break. He wasn't tired by any means, in fact it felt like he barely expended any of his energy. But he was curious why the two of them suddenly decided to just put that much distance between them. He highly doubted that they were going to try and avoid him until time ran out. Because if that was the case, he could just head back to the other building and hunt down the last droid. But the '_One for All'_ user was still interested in what they were planning up there.

And sure enough, the muscular blonde got his answer when both boys suddenly came charging towards him.

'_A head on attack? No, they're way too smart for that.'_ The boy contemplated for a moment. Either way, they were coming at him fast. So instead of going to meet them in the middle, he simply decided to let loose with another air blast. "_Fifteen Percent: Texas Smash!"_

The second he released the attack, Togata noticed two things. One was that Yoarashi has a weird grin on his face. And the other was that he suddenly felt his feet leave the ground.

"**Pull!"** Midoriya shouted while narrowly avoiding the strong blast of air.

To be perfectly honest, the green haired boy was banking on Togata trying to charge and meet them half-way. But the fact that he didn't try to attack with his fists made this a lot easier. In an instant, Togata was flung into the air at speeds that would be concerning for any normal person. But seeing how this guy could level an entire building with a single blow, Midoriya wasn't too worried about his body being too weak to handle it.

Yoarashi quickly followed up by summoning a rather large gust of wind right under Togata's body to propel him even further into the sky. In barely a few seconds the dual quirk user was well over eight hundred meters off the ground and slightly disoriented. But what he saw when he finally reoriented himself definitely threw him for a loop.

Someway, somehow, Yoarashi was right in front of him. And the '_whirlwind'_ quirk user didn't look like he was up for some polite conversation. "Sorry about this….**Twister!**"

"Ugh!" Togata grunted as he was pushed a bit further into the air while his body began spinning around fast enough to make him dizzy.

"Midoriya!"

"Let's do it! **Hellstorm!**"

"**Raging Cyclone!"**

What followed was truly a sight to behold. It may have been something that was thought up on the spot by Midoriya pretty much as a last ditch effort. But by using Yoarashi's "_Raging Cyclone"_ as base while Midoriya's "_Hellstorm"_ augmented the winds, the two boys were able to create a massive tornado in the middle of the training ground right underneath Togata. In a matter of seconds the combination move had already taken over everything within a two hundred and fifty meter radius. And the twister itself was well above the buildings.

The purpose of this move was simple. Make it as big and long lasting as possible. Even if their opponent could simply pass through the winds and "psycho-waves" surrounding him, Yoarashi had enough control over his quirk to where he could supply a constant "updraft". So unless the third year student had a way to completely nullify the maximized rotation of both quirks as once, he would be stuck like this for a while.

"How long do you think you can keep this up?!" Midoriya shouted.

"Five minutes if we keep at it like this!" Yoarashi responded with a grin. "Hey, I think I have a perfect name for this!"

"What is it?!" The green haired teen humored him.

"**Whirling Tempest!"**

* * *

"Damn! Did these guys just summon an actual tornado?" Said the astonished voice of one of the Shiketsu students.

"What's going on?"

"They combined their quirks…." Shishikura answered.

"Huh?"

"I'm not certain. But from what I can tell, Midoriya-san's using his quirk to dramatically increase the speed of Inasa-kun's wind."

"They shouldn't be able to do that though." Yaoyorozu interjected. "For them to do something like that, they would have to match the ratio and speed of their quirks perfectly."

"Inasa's hella talented. And if the hype around Tokage's hubby is true, then it wouldn't surprise me if the two of them would be able to pull off something this rad." Utsushimi added.

"_Still, you'd be hard pressed to find even a hero team that could pull something like this off. And these two literally just met thirty minutes ago."_ Kan whispered to Midnight.

"_You're right. Maybe the two are just naturally in sync or something? Now I'm actually kind of disappointed that we had to interrupt their fight." _The "R-Rated" heroine agreed.

* * *

Inside the tornado, Mirio Togata fully acknowledged that he might have miscalculated a bit. He'll be first to admit that he wasn't expecting the two to be able to combine their quirks to efficiently. Yet that wasn't the only thing. He was actually having a difficult time escaping from inside the twister. Realistically he could only use his '_permeation'_ for as long as he could hold his breath. Which was only for about a minute. And there seemed to be some kind of updraft that kept propelling him upwards every time he deactivated his power.

So with the situation what it was he had two options. The first being to just tough it out and wait for them to deactivate this move. Or option two, increase the amount of power that he could summon from '_One for All'._ He was holding back quite a bit up until this point, but now it seemed as though he didn't really have a choice.

'_I guess I'll just have to do this the way that Nighteye wanted. Sorry you guys, but I'll try to make this as quick as possible.'_ With his mind officially made up, the blonde haired boy closed his blue eyes and began focusing his power and spreading throughout his entire body. "**One for All: Zero Cloak - Forty Percent!"**

-(o)-

"How long do you think we'll have to keep this up?!" Yoarashi shouted to Midoriya once again.

"Just a little bit long-"

"**Oklahoma Smash!"** A voice roared from inside the twister.

Suddenly, the tower of wind began fluctuating wildly before all of the air dissipated with enough explosive power to throw back the two first years. Once they finally got their feet back up under them, both Midoriya and Yoarashi had to pause at the current state of their opponent.

Standing tall in the spot where the "_Whirling Tempest"_ was previously destroyed was Togata. Except his appearance had suddenly changed. Although his hero costumed pretty much covered everything except for his face, Midoriya could clearly see these strange blue lines all over his face. Not only that, if the green haired boy didn't know any better he'd say that their opponent looked a bit taller and more muscular than before.

'_Did he just transform or something?'_

"I have to hand it to you guys. I wasn't expecting to have to use forty percent of my max power to break out of that. You first years have some real talent!" Togata shouted up at them with an ominous smile on his face.

Even though he had no clue what this guy just did, the fact that the hairs on the back of his neck were now standing on end let Midoriya know that something bad was about to happen.

"Yoarashi-san!"

"What?!"

"We have to get out of-"

"Too late!" In the blink of an eye, Togata was right in front of Yoarashi, seemingly floating in the air. He was so fast in fact that neither of the two even saw him move.

"What the-"

***Pow!***

Unfortunately for the '_whirlwind'_ quirk user, he wasn't able to finish that thought before receiving a gut punch so powerful that it instantly knocked him out.

"**Inasa Yoarashi is unable to continue the match!"** Midnight's voice said over the loudspeaker.

Before Midoriya even had a chance to react, Togata suddenly disappeared. His eyes quickly darted around only to notice that the boy was now on top of one of the nearby buildings. Gently placing the now unconscious teen on the ground.

"Now then…" The blonde haired teen smirked menacingly. "Let's go ahead and wrap this up, shall we?"

The next thing that Midoriya saw was the entire world go black. He couldn't tell what, but something was now covering his body. And that something just so happened to be Togata's red cape now wrapped around his torso, completely covering his head.

"Nejire told me that you can't use your quirk on things that you can't see."

'_How'd he get behind me so fast?! I have to-'_

***Pow!***

Just like how it was for his teammates, Midoriya's thoughts were cut short by a devastating force striking him in his abdomen. One strong enough to to cause a little bit of vomit to come out of his mouth. The last thing that the '_telekinesis'_ user remembered before finally blacking out was a strong blow hitting him in the back of his neck. Which was caused by a rather restrained neck chop from Togata's right hand.

"**Izuku Midoriya is unable to continue!"**

Once again, the ninth wielder of '_One for All'_ took mercy on his victim by placing him down on the same rooftop where he had left Yoarashi. With about five minutes left on the clock, he decided to go track down the final two remaining students.

-(o)-

_~Inside The Building~_

"What the hell is going on out there?!" Honenuki wondered. Monoma was taken out a few minutes ago and now both Midoriya and Yoarashi were down for the count? He knew that their new opponent was strong. But to subdue those two back to back like that was just crazy.

"Juzo-kun, we need to get moving!" Kuroiro suddenly appeared from one of the dark corners of the room. The '_black'_ quirk user had been pulling recon this entire time on the outside of the building just in case something went wrong.

"Kuroiro-kun, what happened out there?!" Tokoyami questioned.

"That bastard is on his way over here. If we don't get going then-"

***Boom!*** The front door to the bottom floor practically blew open. Instantly all three boys went on their guards and readied themselves to attack.

"Oh good, my hunch _was_ right! You guys decided to stay here and watch over your friends." An all too familiar voice stated calmly.

"Attack!" Honenuki shouted. Usually the lipless teen would've tried to come up with a better plan than that. But there weren't really any other available options for him at the moment.

What followed was pretty much what everyone watching expected.

***Bam!***

***Bam!***

***Bam!***

Not even half a second after Honenuki gave the command, Togata dashed forward and delivered yet another three power gut punches that put all of the remaining first years out of commission. The '_One for All'_ user moved so quickly that not even the cameras in the top corners were able to catch him until it was all over.

"**All of the remaining participants can no longer continue! Everyone please stand by for the medical droid to come and round everyone up."**

* * *

_~Inside the Monitoring Room~_

"Well...that was kind of anticlimactic…" Nirengeki Shoda said what everyone else seemed to be thinking.

"I'll give them credit for being able to last as long as they did." Kendou gave a weak chuckle.

"I see why this Mirio Togata already has a national hero ranking despite still being a student." Shishikura added. "That man is truly a force of nature. Something tells me that he was still holding back quite a bit."

Towards the other end of the room, Nezu, Nighteye and Yagi were quietly voicing their own thoughts on the matter.

"So Sasaki-kun, are you satisfied with the results? It seems that Togata-kun would have no problem dealing with Midoriya-kun in the event of some unforeseen disaster." The unidentified mammal said to the amputee.

Nighteye was silent for a brief few seconds before finally giving the principal his response. "Indeed and my assumptions about him being able to nullify that boy's quirk were correct."

"I still say that this was a bit overboard." Yagi stated.

"Well it's better to be safe than sorry, Toshinori." The green haired man replied. "We still don't know whether or not _you know who_ has some control over that boy. So we needed to be sure. And since I no longer have my quirk, there's no telling what will happen with him in the future."

Outside of a few people that were present during the yakuza raid, no one knew that Nighteye had lost his '_foresight'_ ability after being shot with one of the completed quirk bullets. If it wasn't for that, he would've never even proposed this little game of his in the first place.

"Although…" The man continued. "Given how powerful Tornado was before her disappearance, something tells me that the boy will become a force to be reckoned with. So we better keep an eye on him for the foreseeable future."

All Yagi could do was sigh at his friend's words. He appreciated his former sidekick's opinion just as much as anyone else's. But he feared that his overly cautious attitude might cause some more problems down the line. Either way, Toshinori Yagi needed to have a long overdue conversation with Midoriya before the day was over.

Back with the rest of the party, Midnight was finally ready to begin the next round. "Alright students, listen up! The next match will be teams three and six!"

"Looks like we're up, Ghosty!" Tokage smiled at Yanagi while glancing over at their opponents. '_We have to face off against Ibara and the rich girl, huh?'_

"Looks like it."

"I look forward to working with you." Nagamasa said politely.

"Let's get this party started!" Kamakiri cheered.

"And what will be doing, Midnight-sensei?" Yaoyorozu raised her hand.

The "R-Rated" heroine directed everyone's attention over to the main monitor that displayed Training Ground Omega. More commonly known as the forest training area.

"To put things in simple terms, both of your teams will be conducting a bit of a race."

"A race?" Shiozaki questioned.

"Yes! Both teams will start at opposite ends of the training ground and race to the mountain at the center of the forest. There you have to secure the "hostage droid" and take it back to your gate. The team that does so will be the victor. Standard rules still apply and you will have to accomplish this task within the forty-five minute time limit."

"Nice and easy, just how I like it!" Kamakiri joked.

'_It may be pretty straightforward, but we're practically in Ibara's element.'_ Tokage thought. '_On top of that, Yaoyorozu is going to be our biggest problem aside from her. And I have no clue what that Shiketsu dude in the trench coat can do yet.'_

"However, there's one more obstacle that you'll have to face before you can secure the droid." Midnight interjected.

"And what is that?"

Instead of responding, the black haired woman pressed a button on the control panel and switched the camera feed over to where the droid was located. And when she did, Tokage got a really annoying feeling in her gut. Standing right next to the droid was an all too familiar face with sky blue hair dressed in a tight fitting bodysuit.

"Is that Nejire Hadou?" Kaminari asked out loud.

'_Great...we have to deal with Ms. Mega-tits too? This is some bullshit.'_ The green haired teen scowled. She had heard more than enough rumors about how strong Hadou was to know that the difficulty of this exercise was on a whole different level.

"Needless to say, you'll have to find a way to get past young Hadou when you arrive. So it would be in your best interests to save your energy. And since only one team can win...well, I'll let you all figure out the rest."

"So no matter what, we'll have to fight both sides to pass this." Yanagi said in her usually stoic manner.

"Alright!" Kan then spoke up. "Both teams grab your earpieces and head to your designated starting points. We'll begin shortly."

And with that, teams three and six made their way over to their starting locations. They still had a bit of time, so now was as good a chance as ever to come up with a strategy.

* * *

"So what will be our plan of attack? You U.A. students are more familiar with the area and everyone's capabilities than I am." Nagamasa asked the group.

Tokage was the first one to answer. "The area isn't that big, so we can't avoid fighting no matter what. And we have to be smart to save our energy before having to go up against Nejire."

"So how do you want to play this, Setsuna-chan?"

The green haired teen took a moment to ponder over their options. She was certain that Shiozaki was the biggest issue here, but with Kamakiri on their team he was more than capable of holding his own against her vines. Shishida was probably the fastest one in their entire class aside from Tsunotori, so they'll need to find a way to keep him occupied for as long as possible. And that Shishikura guy was still an unknown for the moment.

"I have a few plans. But they mainly depend on how we matchup against the others. Ghosty, you're going to be our trump card against Nejire, so I want to stay out of the fighting as much as possible."

"If you say so." The '_poltergeist' _user nodded.

"What about the others?" Kamakiri asked.

"Hard to say until we actually get out there. But one thing's for certain, you can leave Yaoyorozu to me."

"Are you sure?"

Tokage then turned towards the '_razor sharp'_ quirk user with a devious smile. One that definitely sent a bit of a chill down his spine. It was the same smile that everyone in 1-B knew that indicated she had something nasty up her sleeve.

"Oh yeah...when I'm through with her, little miss princess will be begging for me to stop. Besides, it's been a while since I've cut loose and played a little..._dirty_."

'_Why do I have the feeling that I'm not going to like how this all plays out?'_ Yanagi deadpanned. Whatever her friend had cooked up in that head of hers, she had the sneaking suspicion that it was going to be bad.

"We still have some time before we reach the gate. So we can hammer out the details until then. Alright team, let's get out there and show those assholes who's boss!"

* * *

**A/N: I'm back once again! To be honest, I'm not 100% satisfied with how this chapter came out. I went back and forth on how I wanted this "fight" to go for like an entire week. But this was the least complicated way that I could wrap up Midoriya's test in one chapter. Naturally, no one stood a fighting chance against Mirio from the beginning. So I didn't want to make it seem like they had a chance when the guy was barely even trying. Hopefully you all enjoyed this chapter.**

**1\. I didn't want to dive too deep into Mirio's control over OfA since this is the only time we'll be seeing it. But this was essentially a glimpse at what his abilities were. For all those wondering, this version of Mirio doesn't have all the quirks of the past users. My theory is that since he had 'permeation' before he got it, then the quirk wouldn't "evolve" like how it did for Midoriya in cannon. **

**2\. For those of you who are wondering how his "Zero Cloak" looks, look up "Akaza" from Kimetsu no Yaiba. That's the vision that I had when I was writing this out. Plus he just gets a bit bigger. There's no reason for it, I just like his character design a lot.**

**3\. Once again, I can't give you guys a good estimate on when I'll be done with the next chapter, especially since I haven't even started writing it out yet. But I'll try and get it done in my free time as much as possible.**

**Like always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to leave a review/comment. And don't forget to vote on the poll for my next story whenever you get a chance!**


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